Labs & Facilities
Laboratories
Major Equipment:
- Liquid Scintillation Counter
- High capacity, low speed refrigerated centrifuge
- Assorted equipment for agarose and polyacrylamide gel
- Electrophoresis and blotting procedures
- Gamma Counter
Procedures:
- Radioimmunoassay
- Short term tissue culture
- Northern and Western blotting
Location: 619 W.P. Garrigus Building
Contact: Susan Hayes, (859) 257-4168, Room 420
Major Equipment:
- Research microscope
- Water-jacketed incubator
- Shaking incubator
- Thermal cycler
- Imaging system
- Spectrophotometer
- Refrigerated centrifuge
Routine Procedures:
- Genomic DNA isolation
- Protein isolation
- Total RNA isolation, purification and quantification
- Reverse transcription and PCR
Location: 218B W.P. Garrigus Building
Contact: Phillip Bridges, (859) 257-4877
Major Equipment:
- HTS 7000 spectrophotometer (6- to 392-well microtiter plate reader; UV, absorbance, fluorescence reading capabilities).
- CO2 incubators
- Cell culture hood
- Hybridization oven
- UV crosslinker
- Gel electrophoresis units (horizontal/agarose, and vertical/PAGE)
- Superspeed centrifuge (1.5, 10, 50, 250, 500 mL tube or bottle rotors)
Routine Procedures:
- RNA (A260, torulla yeast RNA std) quantification
- DNA (A260, salmon sperm DNA) quantification
- Protein (A590, bovine serum albumin; Lowry) quantification
- Reverse transcriptase
- PCR
- TA cloning
- Enzymatic restriction of cDNA
- Northern and immunoblot (Western)
- Primary and immortalized cell culture
- Whole-cell transport
Location: 821A W.P. Garrigus Building
Contact: Kyle McLeod, (859) 257-2892
Major Equipment:
- Bomb calorimeter
- Filter fluorometer
Routine Procedures:
- Selenium assay
Location: 621 W.P. Garrigus Building
Contact: Tayo Adedokun, (859) 257-3821
Major Equipment:
- YSI Glucose/Lactate Analyzer
- Refrigerated Centrifuge
- -80 Freezer
- Brinkman Homogenizer
- UV-Visible Spectrophotometer
- Scanning Thermocouple
- Portable Large Animal Scale (2000 lb capacity)
- Large Animal Treadmill (at Farm)
- Portable Radiograph
- Equine Heart Rate Monitor
- Water bath, balances, etc
Routine Procedures:
- Blood/plasma/serum chemistries (glucose, lactate, free fatty acids, triglycerides, glycerol)
- Total protein
- Plasma volume
- Serum CK and AST
- Radiographic bone density
Location: 616 W.P. Garrigus Building
Contact: L. Lawrence, (859) 257-7509, Room 905; S. Hayes, (859) 257-4168, Room 420
Major Equipment:
- General microbiological equipment
- Autoclaves
- Incubators
- Water Baths
- PCR Thermal Cycler
- Laminar Flow Hood
Routine Procedures:
- Microbial Enumeration
- Microbial Identification
- Microbial Challenge studies
- Antibiotic Resistance studies
- Fermentation studies
Location: 221 W.P. Garrigus Building
Contact: Melissa Morgan, (859) 257-5881; Kelsey Lamb, (859) 257-3855
Major Equipment:
- Bohlin Rheometer
- Differential Scanning Calorimeter
- Fluoromax Flourometer
- Brinkman Polytron
- Turner Fluorometer
- LKB Laser Densitometer
- Perkin Elmer Spectrophotometer
- Biorad SDS-Page
- Circulating Waterbath
- Instron 4301
Routine Procedures:
- Protein Isolation/Purification
- SDS-Page
- DSC
- Sensory Panels
- Gel Strength
- Dynamic Rheological Properties
- Water Holding Capacity
- Spectrophotometric Analysis
- Protein Biochemistry Analysis
Major Equipment:
- HPLC with photodiode array (PDA) and evaporative light-scattering detectors (ELSD)
- HPAEC-PAD/MS for separation, detection, and identification of monosaccharide and oligosaccharide mixtures
- Rotary evaporator
Routine Procedures:
- Monosaccharide composition of plant cell wall material
- Ester-linked phenolic acid profiling of plant cell wall material
- Arabinoxylan structural screening
Location: 216C-D W.P. Garrigus Building
Contact: Rachel Schendel, (859) 257-7538
Major Equipment:
- Bomb calorimeter (Parr)
- Nanopure water purifier
- Microwave digestion (2 units)
- ELISA plate reader
- Tecator Soxtec system reflux fat extraction unit
- Instron machine
Location: 618, 621 W.P. Garrigus Building
Contact: Dr. Noel Inocencio, (859) 257-7561
Major Equipment:
- Agilent GC
- Waters UHPLC
- GE AKTA FPLC
- LI-COR Odyssey scanner
- Biotek microplate reader
- Metrohm Titrando
- Microscopes
- ULT freezer
- Thermocycler
- Bio-Rad gel electrophoresis/western blotting apparatus
- Nanodrop spectrophotometer
- Rotary evaporator
- Labconco freeze dryer
Routine Procedures:
- Food and protein digestion
- Protein/peptide analysis
- Purification of food proteins and bioactive compounds
- Proteomics/Peptidomics and mass spectrometry
- Various biological assays (antioxidant/anti-inflammatory/anti-diabetic, etc.)
- Animal tissue analysis
- Mammalian cell culture
- Gel electrophoresis
- Western blotting
- (q)PCR
Location: 416, 421 W.P. Garrigus Building
Contact: Dr. Hongbing Fan, (859) 218-5601
Major Equipment:
- UV/VIS spectrophotometer
- COBAS centrifugal analyzer
- Atomic absorption spectrophotometer (includes graphite furnace)
- HPLC with UV/VIS and fluorescent detection
- LECO N-analyzer
- Gas chromatograph with FID
- Standard and Ankom fiber analysis equipment
Routine Procedures:
Metabolites
- Ruminal Volatile Fatty Acid (VFA)
- Blood VFA
- D- And L-Lactate (Enzymatic)
- Lactic Acid (Barker Summerson)
- Pyruvate Analysis
- Acetoacetate Analysis
- b-Hydroxybutyrate Analysis
- L-Alanine Analysis
- Glutamate Analysis
- Glutamine Analysis
- Free Fatty Acid Analysis
- Vitamin E In Plasma
- Blood Glucose Specific Activity
Enzymes
- Amylase
- Trypsin
- Chymotrypsin
- Carboxypeptidase A
- Ruminal Fluid Urease Assay
Nitrogen
- Kjeldahl Nitrogen And Protein
- Acid Detergent Insoluble Nitrogen
- Pepsin Insoluble Nitrogen
- Protein Assay Using Bca (Pierce, No. 23225)
- Ammonia
Fiber
- Total Dietary Fiber In Foods
- Neutral Detergent Fiber (Cell Wall Constituents)
- Alternative Procedure For High Starch Samples
- Acid Detergent Fiber (ADF)
- Acid Detergent Lignin (ADL)
- Filtrations Using Filter Paper For (ADF and NDF )
- Crucible Cleaning Procedure
- Ankom Method For ADF
- Ankom Method For NDF
- Ankom Method For Crude Fiber
- Ankom Method For ADL Using Beakers
Markers
- Acid Insoluble Ash
- Atomic Absorption Analysis Of Chromic Oxide
- Analysis Of Chromic Oxide By Wet Ashing
- Chromic Oxide-Dry Ashing And Colorimetric
- DTPA Extraction For Rare-Earth Element Analysis
- Preparation Of Chromium And Cobalt EDTA
- Indigestible Adf (IADF)
Other Analyses
- Starch Analysis
- Total Long Chain Fatty Acid Analysis
- Analysis Of Total Lipid Content
- Inorganic Phosphate Determination
- Total Calcium Analysis
- Brush Border Membrane Vesicles
- Maltase Assay For Transport
- Alkaline Phosphatase Assay For Transport
Microbial Analyses
- Separation Of Bacteria And Protozoa
- Bacterial Isolation From Rumen Contents
- Determination Of D-Alanine
- Purine Content Of Ruminal Microbes And Digesta
- Tilley-Terry Two Stage In Vitro Fermentation
- Van Soest Modification Of Tilley-Terry Procedure
- Ankom In Vitro True Digestibility
Cobas Procedures
- Measuring Absorbance At 280 Nm
- Alpha Amino Nitrogen
- Alpha Amino Nitrogen (Hydrolysates)
- Plasma Amylase
- Ammonia Nitrogen Using Gdh For Plasma
- Ammonia Nitrogen Using Salicylate
- Bca Soluble Protein
- b-Hydroxybutyrate In Blood
- Cholesterol In Plasma
- Creatinine For Plasma And Urine
- Chymotrypsin In Pancreatic Juice
- Plasma Glucose Using Hexokinase
- Inorganic Phosphorus
- Free Fatty Acids In Plasma
- Pah Analysis
- Trypsin In Bovine Pancreatic Juice
Location: 816-818 W.P. Garrigus building
Contact: David L. Harmon, (859) 257-7516; Winston Lin, (859) 257-2977
Major Equipment:
- Gas Chromatograph with FID
- GC/Mass Spectrometer
- Microbalance
- Large volume centrifuge (8,000 x g)
- HPLC with diode array detector
- UV/VIS spectrophotometer
Routine Procedures:
- Flavor chemistry procedures
Quick Links
Research Facilities
The Department of Animal Sciences has a wide array of modern research facilities and resources available for the in-depth examination of molecular processes, whole animal metabolism and multi-faceted systems involving animals. Laboratories, research farms, on-campus resource facilities and off-campus research stations are all used to tackle both applied and basic problems related to animal production and animal-derived food processing.
Farm Facilities
In addition to on-campus research facilities, the department operates several research farms in the greater Lexington area. The 1,500-acre Animal Research Center (ARC) in nearby Woodford County is currently home to the Beef Research Unit and Sheep Unit. Dairy and swine research are conducted at the Coldstream Farm, located just north of Lexington. Maine Chance is the home of the Equine Research Unit.
Part of our mission is to conduct research relevant to a variety of production systems and environments. Therefore, several off-campus research farms are located throughout the state. The Eden Shale Farm in Owen County has activities related to beef cattle management. Beef nutrition and swine research are conducted at the West Kentucky Substation Farm in Princeton, Kentucky.
The Department of Animal Sciences at the University of Kentucky operates a 100 acre horse farm for teaching and research. The farm is located about 10 miles from the main University of Kentucky campus. The farm includes two separate barn areas with more than 15 pastures/paddocks of various sizes. The farm routinely maintains 60 to 80 horses, depending upon season and research needs. The farm is staffed by a full time manager with an M.S. degree, a full time animal technician and a number of student workers.
The Animal Science Beef Unit at the UK Animal Research Center located in Woodford County, approximately 15 miles from campus, provides state of the art facilities for conducting beef cattle production and management research. The Intensive Research building provides space for offices and laboratories, as well as 36 individually housed animals, a surgery suite, and animal handling and support, all with environmental control. Production facilities include 48 pens for feeding experiments, 60 Calan gates for individual feeding and 24 individual pens for more intensive sampling or feeding studies. A feed center for diet preparation and a handling facility for sorting and weighing animals surrounds the center on approximately 450 acres including 32, 7.5 acre pastures for grazing nutrition experiments.
The 350-ewe flock is located on 110 acres of the 1500-acre Animal Research Center. Sitting in the center of this acreage is a Lambing Barn, Nutrition Center, office Complex, and Student Quarters. The 336 x 48-foot Lambing Barn contains 12 pens, each with enough square footage to maintain 20 ewes and their twin lambs. Each pen opens to a 32 x 44-foot gravel "runout." These pens will also be used for drylot lamb feeding. Four bays of 4 x 5-foot lambing pens are located in the center of the barn. Each bay can house 16 ewes and their newborns. These pens can be transformed into 32 individual lamb feeding pens. The entire barn is wired for computerization and video recording.
The Coldstream Dairy Research Farm Complex was originally constructed in the early 1960s. There have been many renovations and facility updates since then. The complex includes:
- a free stall barn with 108 stalls for the milking herd
- a tie-stall barn with 36 stalls, used primarily for cows on research trials that require individual feeding
- a small free stall barn with 18 stalls and Calan individual feeders; used primarily for nutrition research
- a milking parlor that holds eight cows (essentially 2 "double 2" parlors)
- heifer, dry cow and maternity facilities
- a management building that includes an office, teaching facilities and laboratory space.
The new swine research center is located about 12 miles west of Lexington.
- Three site production (Headquarters-Gestation-Farrowing Unit, Nursery Unit, Grow-Finish Unit)
- Size: 120 sows (24 farrowings every 4-5 weeks), 250 litters/year, 3-week weaning
- Breeding: Rotational crossbred; Yorkshire-Landrace F1, x terminal male
- Finish out about 1/2 of pigs
The C. Oran Little Research Center is a 1,484 acre farm which was purchased in 1991 for the development of a state-of-the-art animal research facility. The center is located at the intersection of Highway 60 and Highway 62 in Versailles, Kentucky. The land and facilities replaced most of the animal research activities and programs that had been conducted on the University of Kentucky Coldstream Farm since the 1950s. Shortly after the farm was purchased, the state legislature approved funds for the construction of buildings and infrastructure to house beef, swine and sheep units.
The modern beef research facility consists of an intensive research building and four buildings with pens for feeding individual or pens of animals. Additionally, the facility has a nutrition center with six silos, a handling facility, and a manure compost operation. The Intensive Research building is equipped to handle highly technical research, and the building serves as the office and headquarters for the beef unit. The Intensive Research building also contains laboratories and a classroom for instruction.
The swine research facility houses 120 sows. The facility consists of three separate components: the headquarters, gestation and farrowing; the nursery; and the growing-finishing unit. Nutrition and the prudent use of antibiotics in commercial swine production is the focus of research. Manure from the facility is stored in tanks and periodically injected into crop fields for fertilizer.
The sheep research unit consists of a 350 ewe flock. The sheep facility, located on 110 acres of the C. Oran Little Research Center, contains a lambing barn, nutrition center, office complex, student living quarters, and pastures for forage evaluation. Research centers on improving the efficiency of sheep production for Kentucky producers. In addition to research, the beef, swine, and sheep facilities are used for undergraduate course work and other educational programs. Also, faculty and staff of the departments of Veterinary Science, Plant and Soil Sciences, and Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering conduct research at the C. Oran Little Research Center.
Our newly built poultry research facility, comprised of two buildings, is located at the C. Oran Little Research Center, about 14 miles from campus. The UK Poultry Research Facility is a vital part of teaching, research and extension programs in poultry science. It also provides support for other programs in Animal Sciences and other university departments. The department’s Poultry Unit relocated from Coldstream to the C. Oran Little Research Center. Relocation allowed us to continue the high-quality research currently being conducted and enhance our research, teaching and outreach capabilities.
University Resources
The university is categorized as a Research University with very high research activity by the Carnegie Foundation. There are a wide variety of resources available for state-of-the-art research in many biological disciplines. Some of the major resources are:
- Macromolecular Structure Analysis Facility
- Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Center
- Flow Analysis and Cell Sorting Facility
- Transgenic Mouse Facility
- Advanced Science and Technology Commercialization Center
The UK Library System has over 2 million volumes and receives over 23,000 periodical and serial titles. The W.T. Young Library houses the majority (1.2 million volumes) of the collection in 361,000 square feet on 37 miles of shelving. The Young Library is fully equipped to take advantage of electronic information technology, and the library system provides online catalog searching and other automated services throughout campus.
