Research Facilities

The BU Biology Department offers many resources for facilitating both undergraduate and graduate education. In relation to ecological emphases, we have several boats for aquatic sampling as well as a 4-wheel-drive SUV, a large pick-up truck, and two passenger vans for field work. The department maintains the Baylor University Herbarium (BAYLU), founded in 1903 by Lula Pace. Since then, it has grown to more than 54,000 catologued specimens. Emphasis is placed on the flora of Texas, but the herbarium has good representation of plants of the United States, Mexico, and South America. The vertebrate collection, focusing on small mammals (c. 3,000 specimens, predominantly rodents and bats) and fishes (c. 2,000 specimens) geographically emphasizes Texas and Mexico.

For more than a decade, the Biology Department has maintained a teaching and research presence in western Mexico, based at Chapala Ecology Station (CES). Lake Chapala, on which CES is located, has been a subject of research by BU aquatic scientists for nearly 25 years.

Our electron microscopy facilities, funded by a grant from the Keck Foundation, are less than 10 years old. We have both scanning and transmission equipment. This equipment is available for support of a wide range of research programs.

We are most proud, however, of the new sciences building completed in summer of 2004 (pictured, right). The new building is over 500,000 square feet, representing a manifold increase in teaching and research space over that now available. The facility is shared by most of Baylor's science departments, including Biology, thereby promoting interdisciplinary collaboration among faculty of various departments. It is the home of core facilities for centers whose foci include aquatic research (Center for Reservoir and Aquatic Systems Research, or CRASR), molecular biology, drug discovery, and others.

For example, the Molecular Biosciences Center, a 1500 sq. ft. common-use facility, will house an extensive inventory of equipment: capillary-based automated DNA sequencer, a fluorimager, a phosphoimager, cell-culture hoods, a real-time PCR thermocycler, a flow cytometer, a HEPA-filtered analytical PCR room, a microscope room (including an epifluorescence microscope with micro-injection setting and digital camera), microorganism detection machine, a general molecular laboratory for training new users, and an adjoining conference room shared with the Center for Drug Discovery. Other facilities include dedicated cell-culture rooms, a plant-tissue culture room, an autoclave/dishwashing room, and a centrifuge/ultracentrifuge facility. An offsite greenhouse includes two rooms for field specimens, four rooms for transgenic plants and transgenic plant viruses, potting rooms, and a laboratory for DNA, RNA and protein isolation. The Center for Reservoir and Aquatic Systems research is equally well equipped with state-of-the-art instrumentation.

Off campus, Baylor aquatic scientists King, Brooks, and Doyle have developed a state-of-the-art aquatic research facility for conducting experimental manipulations in artificial streams and wetlands. Aptly named the BEAR (Baylor Experimental Aquatic Research), the facility rivals any in North America in terms of size (over 30,000 square feet), replication (12 streams and 24 wetland mesocosms), and realism (e.g., streams are over 60 feet long, stratified into riffle, glide and pool sections with natural substrate and substantial flow rates). The BEAR is a phenomenal resource for faculty and students alike interested in linking field studies with controlled, but realistic, experiments in aquatic science.