Facilities and equipment

The DNA laboratory facility at the Finnish Museum of Natural History is equipped with necessary apparatuses for standard molecular work, DNA extraction and PCR amplification. The laboratory is supervised and run by a part time laboratory manager, and has no other permanent staff. The lab provides basic labware like measuring glasses and gloves.
The main lab has 10 bench places, allocated to members of FMNH based research groups at the Botanical and Zoological units. The research groups independently plan their work and purchase all laboratory chemicals and kits necessary to carry out their planned research. The laboratory has three Eppendorf MastercyclerS 96-well PCR machines, centrifuges, several agarose gel running apparatuses of different capacities and gel visualization instruments, a spectrophotometer, hotblocks, two fume hoods, ice machine, incubators, ultrapure water and lab dishwasher.
Sequencing is outsourced to sequencing service laboratories at the University of Helsinki or international commercial companies offering DNA sequencing service, independently managed and paid for by each research team. Sequence chromatogram editing program is available on PC computer.

Research groups

Research groups in the lab 2013-14