Research Facilities and Offices
The IFSH Center for Nutrition Research utilizes a number of modern facilities fitted with top-of-the-line instrumentation and equipment to provide high-quality support to member companies, government agencies, and IIT researchers and students across multiple research efforts, including:
Applied Chemistry Laboratory
This newly renovated 1,000 sq. ft. applied chemistry lab supports research in nutrition and chemical contaminants, including investigations into the properties of food matrices related to the content and profile of antioxidant compounds and their effect on human health, as well as food safety related contaminant issues, such as acrylamide, melamine, pesticides and mycotoxins in food that may help improve food processing mitigation strategies. IFSH member Agilent Technologies is a collaborative partner in the renovation and has outfitted the lab with several pieces of equipment. Equipment and features include:
- Four large bench areas with three new and modern hoods for additional chemical and extraction processing
- Agilent rapid resolution liquid chromatograph (RRLC) with 6460 triple quadrupole (QQQ) mass spectrometer (MS); Agilent 1100 HPLC with 6500 time-of-flight mass spectrometer (TOF-MS); two Agilent 1100 HPLCs with diode array and fluorescence detection; Agilent 7890 GC with 5975 single quadrupole MS; and Agilent 7890 GC with 7000 triple quadrupole MS, for pesticide, mycotoxin, drug residue and phenolic antioxidant research.
- Agilent 7000 inductive coupled plasma-mass spectrometer (ICP-MS), 7696A sample prep workbench and bioanalyzer, for analysis of heavy metals and other elements, fatty acid profiling and species identification of fish.
- Varian ICP with optical emission (OE) spectrometer, for nanotechnology research
- Shimadzu GC-MS with CTC headspace autosampler, for use in proficiency testing and FERN initiatives
Nutrition and Biochemistry Laboratory
The 700 sq. ft. nutrition and biochemistry laboratory is used to conduct bioassays related to clinical nutrition research and pre-clinical studies and biochemical analyses for the Clinical Nutrition Research Center. Equipment and features include:
- UV and fluorescence spectrophotometers capable of reading individual and multi-plate samples
- Gel electrophoresis equipment and Western immunoblotting devices
- High performance fluorescence and chemiluminescence image capturing instrumentation
- Light microscopes with digital image capturing and DNA engine for PCR work
- Designated cell culture work area, with environment controlled CO2 incubator for cell growth maintenance and liquid nitrogen cryopreservation system
- Freeze dryer, biological freezers, and refrigerators
- Clinical, super-speed and micro-ultra centrifuges
Analytical Chemistry Laboratory
The analytical chemistry laboratory performs a wide range of chemical constituent, allergen and nutritional compound analyses, such as vitamin C, Vitamin A and the carotenoids, vitamin E and the B vitamins. Equipment and features include:
- State-of-the-art GC, GC-MS, HPLC and HPLC-MS/MS
- Ultraviolet (UV) and fluorescence instrumentation
- Electrophoresis and differential scanning colorimetry
- Access to circular diachronic and X-ray crystallography for protein structure determination
Clinical Nutrition Research Center (CRNC)
The Clinical Nutrition Research Center, constructed in the IIT Research Tower on IIT’s main campus in Chicago, is a 5,000 sq. ft. facility designed and dedicated for the purpose of conducting outpatient clinical research studies. Equipment and features include:
- On-site subject/patient screening and training
- Metabolic kitchen for test food preparation and distribution
- Two food intake suites for communal dining and or individual dining and larger refrigerators for food storage
- Multiple private examination and consultation rooms, and stations adapted for phlebotomy use or catheter implantation and management
- Dedicated rooms equipped for vitals assessment, flow-mediated dilation assessment (GE-LOGi-Q, ultrasound equipment with a special ultrasound bed), anthropometrics, food intake and appetite evaluation, among others
- Separate laboratory space equipped for specimen processing, storage and fresh sample analysis
- Biological freezers, refrigerators, centrifuges (clinical, superspeed, micro-ultracentrifuge), biological safety hood, platelet function analyzer, portable glucose, hemoglobulin and lipid analyzers
- Randox Daytona fully automated clinical analyzer, capable of running 180 different clinical chemistry tests and 270 tests per hour
- Licensed with specialized computer programs for food intake analysis (ESHA nutrient data base) and statistical analysis