Core Facilities or Service Centers are centralized shared research resources that provide access to instruments, technologies, services, and in many cases expert consultation and training to researchers. Across the Institute, there are more than 50 core facilities.
Core facilities generally recover their cost, or a portion of their cost, in the form of user fees that are charged to an investigator's grant, contract or, in some cases, discretionary funds. Because of this, they are subject to the Service Center Policy and associated Accounting and Operating Procedures.
Many of these facilities are available on a fee-for-service basis to all investigators. Others are supported by individual departments, specific grants or groups of investigators, and may also be available on a fee-for-service to the broader community when capacity permits, or on a collaborative basis.
If you are looking for a specific function or type of equipment, use the CTRL/F (command/F) function to find terminology listed on this page.
Please send additions or updates to this listing to the VPR webmaster
Facility Areas
- Animal Modeling and Clinical Testing
- Cell Culture and Analysis
- Chemistry Synthesis and Analysis
- Data Analysis and Data Management
- Fabrication
- Human Subjects Testing
- Imaging: Animal Modeling and Clinical Testing
- Imaging
- Instrument Repair
- Materials Production and Analysis
- Technology R&D
Animal Modeling and Clinical Testing
Facility |
Location |
Description |
|---|---|---|
76-044 |
The KI Zebrafish Core Facility was established to provide expertise to KI and MIT researchers who wish to utilize zebrafish as a model organism for any kind of research along with professional daily care of the animals and aquarium systems. The facility can meet a wide range of needs, from one-off experiments of limited scope, to long-term maintenance of dozens of transgenic and/or mutant lines. |
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|
(formerly ES Cell & Transgenic Animal Core Facility) |
76-195 |
This shared resource of the Koch Institute provides fee-for-service support to all MIT investigators who utilize cultured ES cells or novel mouse models to study human diseases such as cancer. Services encompass embryonic stem cells, microinjections, repositories of reagent mice, and much more. |
Facility |
Location |
Description |
|---|---|---|
|
(formerly ES Cell & Transgenic Animal Core Facility)
|
76-195 |
This shared resource of the Koch Institute provides fee-for-service support to all MIT investigators who utilize cultured ES cells or novel mouse models to study human diseases such as cancer. Services encompass embryonic stem cells, microinjections, repositories of reagent mice, and much more. |
76-182 |
The Hope Babette Tang (1983) Histology Facility assists investigators in generating quality histological slides. We have the equipment and expertise to produce sections from frozen, paraffin-embedded, and resin-embedded tissues. The Hope Babetta Tang Histology facility produces routine hematoxylin and eosin stained slides, immunohistochemical, and special stains. With these tools, the investigator will be better able to evaluate the pathologic consequences of various mutations or treatments. |
|
46-1303 |
Starting from fibroblasts or other cells brought by users, the iPS Core Facility is equipped for the specialized production, maintenance, expansion, preservation, and distribution of iPS cell lines, iPS- and ES-derived neuronal progenitor cells, iPS-and ES- derived neurons, induced neuronal (iN) cells, and neural organoids. The facility also offers karyotyping of iPS cells, training on working with iPS cell cultures and their differentiation, and consulting on how to produce isogenic pairs of cell lines. |
|
76-279 (Cell Sorting Lab); 76-273 (Analysis) |
Provides KI and MIT researchers with technical expertise, training and access to sophisticated instrumentation, enabling and supporting the use of a wide range of flow cytometry techniques. This technology allows simultaneous multiparametric analysis of many thousands of cells per second, enabling trained researchers to rapidly analyze complex cell populations using benchtop analysis flow cytometers. High-speed assisted cell sorting services provide researchers with fast, objective and quantitative recording of fluorescent signals from individual cells combined with physical separation of cells of particular interest. |
|
|
(formerly) High Throughput Screening Facility |
76-047 |
The High Throughput Screening Facility provides automated screening capability to KI and MIT researchers, as well as access to curated small molecule and lentiviral shRNA (RNAi) libraries. The facility is equipped with an Arrayscan automated confocal high content screening microscope, Tecan Evo liquid handlers, plate washers, automated micoplate centrifuges, an automated plate reader, and automated CO2 incubators. The instruments can be used in either walk-up or automated modes using our robot arms for general screening or plate preparation. The facility provides assay development and screening services in both BL2 and BL2+ space, as well as consultation and training for researchers with specific needs or challenging problems |
Facility |
Location |
Description |
|---|---|---|
68-316 |
The BioMicro Center was founded as the core biofabrication and microarray processing facility at MIT, offering a wide range of genomic services to researchers. Majority of services rendered pertain to massively parallel sequencing using the Illumina platform, commercial array processing, real-time PCR, and informatics and computational support. |
|
68-470 |
The Biophysical Instrumentation Facility (BIF) houses instruments to elucidate macromolecular structure and interactions. The BIF instruments include a Sartorius Octet R8 BioLayer Interferometry instrument, Jasco J-1500 CD spectrometer, a Wyatt DynaPro NanoStar for dynamic light scattering, a Panta nanoDSF with parallel DLS, a Malvern PEAQ-ITC isothermal titration calorimeter, a Refeyn TwoMP Mass Photometer, and an Agilent HPLC with SEC-MALS detection. The BIF is largely used by researchers in Chemistry, Biology, Biological Engineering and Chemical Engineering, but is available to anyone on campus and beyond. The BIF is a BL1 facility. The facility manager is available to train new users and advise those considering the potential application of the instruments in the facility. |
|
76-181 (Biopolymers); 76-387 (Proteomics) |
The Biopolymers & Proteomics Core Facility provides MIT researchers with integrated synthetic and analytical capabilities for biological materials, including DNA, proteins and nanoparticles. Services include routine Sanger DNA sequencing, mass spectrometry-based proteomics approaches for identification, characterization, or quantitation of proteins, MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry, peptide synthesis and purification, and high-pressure liquid chromatographic analysis and purification. |
|
56-265 | |
The Bioimaging and Chemical Analysis Facilities Core provides Center members with state-of-the-art tools and techniques for the characterization and quantification of chemical substances and modifications of cellular compounds ranging from small molecules, e.g., single metal ions, metabolites and reaction products, to nucleic acid oligomers and intact proteins. The Core resources also include a suite of data-handling software for qualitative and quantitative analyses. As a resource for CEHS members, the Core allows researchers to use the facilities at two levels: fully trained users, and supervised analyses. |
|
18-0090 |
The facility's function is to maintain a sufficient number and type of state-of-the-art major analytical instruments in order to support the ongoing research programs within the MIT Chemistry Department. |
|
54-1221; 54-1214 |
The MIT Electron Microprobe Facility serves as the centerpiece of analytical instrumentation used in EAPS for research and teaching activities in geochemistry, petrology and mineral physics. The instruments in the facility form part of the Center for Geochemical Analysis (CGA), which comprises six instrument-oriented facilities. The microprobe facility serves a broad spectrum of research scientists at MIT, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), neighboring universities, academic institutions and the industry. Analytical services are available for the faculty and professionals. User training is also available. An hourly fee is charged. |
|
Building NW14 |
The objectives of CMR are: to develop sophisticated technologies for magnetic resonance in the areas of solution-state NMR, solid-state NMR, electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR), and dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP); to apply those technologies to biologically and medically significant research, both in-house and collaboratively; to operate a state-of-the-art instrument facility to serve needs of researchers in chemistry, biology, and medicine; and to openly disseminate and provide training in technological developments at the Center. |
|
High Throughput Sciences (formerly High Throughput Screening Facility) |
76-047 |
The High Throughput Screening Facility provides automated screening capability to KI and MIT researchers, as well as access to curated small molecule and lentiviral shRNA (RNAi) libraries. The facility is equipped with an Arrayscan automated confocal high content screening microscope, Tecan Evo liquid handlers, plate washers, automated micoplate centrifuges, an automated plate reader, and automated CO2 incubators. The instruments can be used in either walk-up or automated modes using our robot arms for general screening or plate preparation. The facility provides assay development and screening services in both BL2 and BL2+ space, as well as consultation and training for researchers with specific needs or challenging problems |
NE47-4F |
Founded in 2002, the ISN is a result of the Army’s vision to explore the potential power of nanotechnology to enable unprecedented advances in capabilities for Soldier protection and survivability. To capitalize on this opportunity, the Army decided to create the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies as a university center for basic research on nanotechnology. ISN equipment and facilities are available as resources to members of the MIT community. |
|
18-393 |
Provides diagnosis, repair, modification, consultation, and education of laboratory equipment and electronic instrumentation in departmental laboratories. Also provides access to analyltical instruments. It is a resource specific to members of the Department of Chemistry. |
|
8-114 |
A state-of-the-art laboratory in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT for probing the properties and surfaces of engineering and biological materials at atomic and molecular length scales through mechanical contact. |
|
Building NW12 |
The MIT Nuclear Reactor Laboratory (MIT-NRL) is an interdepartmental center that operates a high performance 6 MW research reactor known as the MITR-II. NRL staff also provide technical assistance for research projects for high school students, undergraduate and graduate students, university researchers and faculty members, and national laboratory users. |
|
76-037 |
The Peterson (1957) Nanotechnology Materials Core Facility provides a broad range of equipment and expertise to work with nanomaterials for the purposes of both characterization and imaging. Core imaging capabilities include a high performance field emission transmission electron microscope equipped for STEM, EELS, EDS and cryo-imaging, cryo-sample preparation, a freeze fracture system, and an atomic force microscope. Instrumentation for material characterization includes high throughput particle sizing, HPLC and dedicated nucleic acid HPLC, dynamic mechanical analysis, and rheometry. |
|
68-470 |
The Structural Biology Core Facility is open to the entire MIT community in structural biology and provides access to state-of-the-art equipment for X-ray crystallography. |
|
2-325 |
The Department of Chemistry’s X-Ray Diffraction Facility is equipped with two modern and versatile Bruker diffractometers. These diffractometers are coupled to extraordinarily sensitive Bruker APEX and APEX2 CCD detectors that give rise to high-resolution data even on very small crystals (down to 10μm) and facilitate the collection of complete and highly redundant datasets in any given Laue class. Modern low-temperature devices from Oxford Cryosystems, covering a temperature range from 90 to 500K, complete our setup. The X-ray Diffraction Facility offers full single crystal X-ray structure determination at two wavelengths (Cu or Mo), including the determination of absolute configuration of chiral molecules from anomalous scattering.” |
Facility |
Location |
Description |
|---|---|---|
The Barbara K. Ostrom (1978) Bioinformatics & Computing Facility |
76-158; 68-317a |
The Barbara K. Ostrom (1978) Bioinformatics & Computing Facility provides Koch Institute researchers with assistance and training in a wide range of bioinformatics related topics. Access is typically reserved for KI members. In some circumstances, access may be available to non-member MIT users. Examples include assistance with experimental design and subsequent analysis of next-generation sequencing and microarray experiments, genome annotation projects and other sequence and phylogenetic analysis applications. The Core also provides KI members with critical data backup as well as installation and maintenance of desktop hardware and a variety of software, including scientific applications. |
46-2303L |
The Picower Institute's Bioinformatics Office has been developed to utilize high-performance computing clusters to support high throughput data analysis, with a particular focus on genomic and epigenomic data analysis to support bench biologists. |
|
7-238 |
Data Management Services (DMS) provides the MIT research community with expertise on managing research data throughout the research data life-cycle. From working with researchers to develop data management plans, through advising on how to conduct effective data management during research execution, to providing recommendations on final data sharing and publication, as frequently required by funders and journals, DMS partners to increase the impact and effectiveness of data. DMS offers individual consultations, general workshops, and customized workshops on issues of data management. Contact DMS at data-management@mit.edu. |
Facility |
Location |
Description |
|---|---|---|
38-001 |
The Central Machine Shop provides convenient, flexible and cost effective machine shop services to the MIT research community and acts as a clearing house for sending appropriate jobs to external shops. The Central Machine Shop personnel will work from a spectrum of rough sketches to machine drawings to create the machined product you require. Requests for shop services can be done either in person or from the Central Machine Shop webpage. Email can be sent directly to the Central Machine Shop atcmshop@mit.edu. |
|
N51-328 |
The Design Fabrication Group is a center for education and research in areas of rapid prototyping and CAD/CAM fabrication for architects and designers. The group engages faculty, students and staff in research focused on the relationship between design computing and physical output used for design representation and reflection. |
|
4-131b, 4-043 |
The LEM includes a variety of prototyping and machining equipment available to DMSE for fabrication of experimental equipment, sample preparation, and general machining needs. |
|
8-102 |
The Laboratory for Advanced Materials (LAM) is in 8-102. It is a shared facility, designed for flexible use. Some lab subjects meet in the LAM. |
|
39 |
The Microsystems Technology Laboratories microfabrication facilities include three cleanroom labs, which offer varying degrees of flexibility and cleanliness levels: Integrated Circuits Laboratory (ICL) -CMOS-compatible processes; Technology Research Laboratory (TRL)- CMOS-compatible plus opto-electronics, MEMS and other semiconductor processes; Exploratory Materials Laboratory (EML) - flexible processes on many materials; and Electron-beam Lithography facility (EBL) - enables writing patterns of arbitrary geometries with minimum features sizes as fine as 5 nm. MTL’s fabrication facilities are open to all MIT faculty and students, as well as users from other academic institutions. |
|
Building 12 |
MIT.nano is home to approximately 50,000-square-feet of Class 100/1000 cleanroom for the design, fabrication, and analysis of micro and nanoscale structures and devices. Our tools support a wide spectrum of nanofabrication processes including lithography, deposition, dry etching, diffusion, wet processing, and metrology. All of MIT.nano’s facilities are available to any trained researcher from across MIT, as well as external users from industry, academia, and government. |
Facility |
Location |
Description |
|---|---|---|
E25-131,201 |
MIT Center for Clinical and Translational Research can accommodate the full range of human subject research. Research can measure numerous clinical standards of care using tools that include everything from wireless vital sign sensors to high-resolution ultrasound. |
Facility |
Location |
Description |
|---|---|---|
76-188 |
The Applied Therapeutics and Whole Animal Imaging Core Facility's primary goal is to support and encourage the translational efforts using refined mouse models of human cancers to test chemotherapeutic response and drug resistance, biosensors for tumor detection and monitoring, diagnostics assays, cancer vaccines, drug delivery systems, and tumor-targeted modalities. Also provides access to instrumentation for in vivo, whole animal imaging, including bioluminescence, fluorescence, ultrasound, and microCT tecnologies. |
Facility |
Location |
Description |
|---|---|---|
13-1012 |
Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) allows the researcher to form images of thin slices or nano particles of samples at a resolution of down to 0.14 nm (lattice resolution). Crystal structure may be analyzed by means of electron diffraction, and chemical analysis, with a sensitivity (in ideal cases) of a few atoms and spatial resolution (again, in ideal cases) of about 0.5nm, may be performed by energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) analysis or electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) analysis. The Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) is a tool for visualizing the surface of solid samples, with a resolution (depending on the application) that can approach 1nm. Energy-dispersive X-ray analysis can be used to analyze volumes with dimensions of around 1 micron with a sensitivity of about 0.2wt%, while back-scattered electron imaging allows the visualization of regions of different composition. Crystallographic orientation and structure can be examined using electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) analysis, though sample preparation requirements for this technique are very stringent and limit the number of samples that can be studied in this way. |
|
46-1171 |
The Martinos Imaging Center is a core facility that provides access to state-of-the-art brain imaging technologies for MIT researchers and their collaborators, including human MRI, small-animal MRI, EEG and MEG. Major research themes at the center include: brain mechanisms of perception, memory, emotion, executive function and social cognition; developmental studies of children; and translational studies on the neural basis of many different psychiatric and neurological disorders. |
|
76-281 |
The Microscopy Core Facility provides experimental consultation, fee-for-service imaging assistance, and training in and access to several imaging platforms, image acquisition equipment and data analysis software packages. Services include light and epifluorescence microscopy, deconvolution-based microscopy, spinning disk confocal microscopy, total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy, spectral karyotyping and fluorescent in situ hybridization, laser capture microdissection, and standard transmission electron and immunoelectron microscopy. |
|
Building 12 lower level |
MIT.nano’s 11,000-square-foot characterization space features twelve imaging suites that house an array of highly sensitive microscopes and other instrumentation to support dimensional science of surfaces and interfaces, advanced imaging spectroscopy (ambient, Cryo, and in-situ), and nanoscale analysis. All of MIT.nano’s facilities, including Characterization.nano, are available to any trained researcher from across MIT, as well as external users from industry, academia, and government. |
|
Whitehead Institute, Room 447 |
Provides state of the art instrumentation and technical expertise to generate and interpret microscopic images; assists investigators in applying sophisticated microscopy techniques to their research; and trains researchers in microscopy techniques and methodology. |
Facility |
Location |
Description |
|---|---|---|
4-069 |
Provides diagnosis, repair, modification, consultation, and education of laboratory equipment and electronic instrumentation in departmental laboratories. Also provides access to analytical instruments. It is a resource specific to members of the Department of Chemistry. |
Facility |
Location |
Description |
|---|---|---|
12-011 |
The CPRL is a central facility with a wide range of analytical and ceramics processing equipment. Provides services for members of the MIT community and outside users. The CPRL is also home to Michael Cima's research group. Currently investigating a number of interesting research areas, including advanced drug delivery techniques and high temperature superconductivity. |
|
NE47-4F |
Founded in 2002, the ISN is a result of the Army’s vision to explore the potential power of nanotechnology to enable unprecedented advances in capabilities for Soldier protection and survivability. To capitalize on this opportunity, the Army decided to create the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies as a university center for basic research on nanotechnology. ISN equipment and facilities are available as resources to members of the MIT community. |
|
4-421, 13-5016, 8-241, 8-102 |
The Laboratory for Physical Metallurgy (or Metlab for short) is a shared facility in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. The facility includes a polishing laboratory for sample preparation and metallography, a heat treatment lab with furnaces and powder processing equipment, and a mechanical testing lab for uniaxial tension/compression and bending tests. The Metlab also contains hardness testing equipment in the Laboratory for Advanced Materials (LAM). |
|
Building 12 lower level |
MIT.nano’s 11,000-square-foot characterization space features twelve imaging suites that house an array of highly sensitive microscopes and other instrumentation to support dimensional science of surfaces and interfaces, advanced imaging spectroscopy (ambient, Cryo, and in-situ), and nanoscale analysis. All of MIT.nano’s facilities, including Characterization.nano, are available to any trained researcher from across MIT, as well as external users from industry, academia, and government. |
|
8-114 |
A state-of-the-art laboratory in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT for probing the properties and surfaces of engineering and biological materials at atomic and molecular length scales through mechanical contact. |
|
76-037 |
The Peterson (1957) Nanotechnology Materials Core Facility provides a broad range of equipment and expertise to work with nanomaterials for the purposes of both characterization and imaging. Core imaging capabilities include a high performance field emission transmission electron microscope equipped for STEM, EELS, EDS and cryo-imaging, cryo-sample preparation, a freeze fracture system, and an atomic force microscope. Instrumentation for material characterization includes high throughput particle sizing, HPLC and dedicated nucleic acid HPLC, dynamic mechanical analysis, and rheometry. |
|
8-140 |
Nocera Pulsed laser deposition system operating with a 248 nm wavelength excimer laser. |
Facility |
Location |
Description |
|---|---|---|
31-264 |
Research at the GTL is focused on advanced propulsion systems and turbomachinery with activities in computational, theoretical, and experimental study of: (1) loss mechanisms and unsteady flows in turbomachines, (2) compression system stability and active control, (3) heat transfer in turbine blading, (4) gas turbine engine noise reduction and aero-acoustics, (5) pollutant emissions and community noise, and (6) MEMS-based high-power-density engines. |
|
17 |
The Wright Brothers Wind Tunnel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a subsonic, closed-circuit, closed return, atmospheric wind tunnel currently classified as having the largest test section of any wind tunnel in academia. |
|
3-269 |
This lab is dedicated to the study of all aspects of marine hydrodynamics. The main facility is a variable pressure recirculating water tunnel that is capable of speeds up to 10 m/s. Experiments with conventional and novel propulsion devices, drag reduction using MHD (magneto-hydrodynamics), flow control by unsteady swimming motion and flapping foils, offshore cylinder testing and vortex-induced-vibrations are performed using state of the art measurement techniques and instrumentation. |
|
48-015 |
The MIT Towing Tank is an experimental hydrodynamics testing facility consisting of a 100 ft x 8 ft x 4 ft testing tank with a functional wave maker and beach, and an 8 ft x 3 ft x 3 ft flow visualization tank. The 100 ft long tank was originally used for ship model resistance testing, although it has been refitted to accomodate experiments associated with the study of biomimetics in marine creatures and vortex-induced vibrations, while maintaining the original model testing capabilities. The smaller visualization tank, consisting of a three axis motor system, and outfitted with a high-speed particle image velocimetry (PIV) system, is used primarily for the quantitative visualization of fluid flows. |
|
37-462 |
The Space Propulsion Laboratory (SPL) houses experimental facilities to support research and educational programs for MIT students. SPL provides the infrastructure to support the Space Propulsion graduate field in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. A significant fraction of SPL's research is focused on the development and modeling of space thrusters. |