The Department of Applied Health Science's Nutrition Science Laboratory Facility includes research labs and a classroom teaching lab for food science courses. The laboratories were completed in 1994, and feature state-of-the art equipment and facilities.
The Teaching Laboratory is used for foods and food chemistry classes, and consists of seven student lab work station bays, which allow for up to 28 students to work simultaneously, and a central demonstration bay. Each bay is fully equiped and is vented with a stainless steel fume hood. Students can prepare a variety of foods and demonstrate many principles of food chemistry using the laboratory facility. Subtle differences in materials and methods are detectable through measurements made using electronic balances, teflon-coated thermometers, microscopes, pH meters, refractometers, and consistometers. Objective methods for evaluating food quality are regularly employed. For example, food texture properties are frequently analysed on a TA.TX2 (Texture Technologies) operated with computer software. Students can view graphical data generated by lab test equipment using a wide-screen color monitor.
The Research Laboratories consist of three laboratories: an instrumentation lab, a lab used to mix research diets for animal experiments, and an analytical procedures lab.
The Instrumentation Laboratory is equipped with an atomic absorption spectrophomometer, high-performance liquid chromatography instrumentation, a cryofreezer, chromatogaphy refrigerators, a floor model centrifuge, a laminar flow hood, lab ovens, 2 fume hoods, electronic balances, pH meters, and many other smaller laboratory devices.
The Analytical Procedures Laboratory contains 3 fume hoods, refrigeration facilities, areas certified for radioisotope procedures, autoclaves, incubators, and a deionized-filtered ultra-pure water collection system.
The Diet-Mixing Facility contains electronic balances, a large floor-model mixer, and refrigeration units for diet storage.
The facilities permit faculty and students to conduct a wide-range of laboratory techniques: from chemical wet-washing procedures and mineral analysis via spectroscopy, to cell culture, radioimmunoassay, and molecular biology.
Other laboratories in the building, including the exercise physiology labs, contain unique equipment that is shared in a collaborative research agreement throughout the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation. This arrangements helps make the Applied Health Science Nutrition Science Laboratories an outstanding research facility.
Last updated: 1 November 1995 wjb
URL: http://www.indiana.edu/~aphs/nutrilab.html
Comments and Web publishing info: webmaster@www.drugs.indiana.edu
Copyright 1995,
The Trustees of Indiana University