J. Bennett Johnston Health and Environmental Research Building
The J. Bennett Johnston Health and Environmental Research (JBJ) Building, located on Tulane Avenue, is a
seven story, state-of-the-art facility which houses the Center for Bioenvironmental Research and other Tulane
research activities. The 184,000 square foot building is designed to encourage interdisciplinary collaboration.
The laboratories are configured in 360 square foot modules. Modular design permits economical
reconfiguration of the lab space as research activities and needs change.
Access Grid
The JBJ Building houses a state-of-the-art conference room equipped with Access Grid videoconferencing
capabilities. Located on the 5th floor and headed by the Center for Infectious Diseases, Access Grid materials
include video, audio and large visual display, as well as internet set up, all which facilitate large group-to-group
interactions. The conference room holds up to 50 individuals. An adjoining room that seats an additional 15
persons contains closed-circuit viewing capabilities.
Tropical Medicine
Dr. Dawn Wesson
Located in the J. Bennett Johnston Health and Environmental Research Building (JBJ, Rms. 535 and 577) on
Tulane Avenue, Dr. Wesson currently supervises approximately 1,350 square feet of laboratory space,
partitioned into three areas: a general laboratory, a contained insectary and a field laboratory. The main
laboratory is 500 square feet dedicated to clinical research activities. Storage space for biological samples at 4,
-20 and -85°C, as well as cryopreservation in liquid nitrogen, is available within the lab or associated
equipment hallways. Standard laboratory equipment includes water baths, analytical balances, pH meters,
fume hoods, etc. Ultrapure (18 megaohm) water is provided by a Nanopure dual-cartridge deionizer
(Barnstead), which is fed by an in-house distilled water source. There is access to an adjacent 575-squarefoot laboratory, which is used for all insect identifications, specimen processing, data entry and storage and
maintenance of field collection gear.
Dr. Nirbhay Kumar
Office: Dr. Kumar has an administrative office (~400 sq. ft) in the Tidewater Building (2 blocks from his
research labs). In addition he also maintains a research office (Rm. 504; ~250 sq. ft.) next to his labs in the
JBJ Building. These offices are equipped with Dell computers with internet connections.
Laboratories and computers: Dr. Kumar’s labs in the JBJ Building are housed on the 5th floor in rooms 517
(1019 sq. ft.), 520 (688 sq. ft.), and 564 (200 sq. ft.). All the freezers, refrigerators and equipment are
connected to Emergency Power supply outlets to ensure uninterrupted power supply. All the molecular biology,
biochemical studies, and immunology are carried out in Rooms 517 and 520. Room 564 is dedicated to cell
culture and immunology research. The labs are equipped with adjustable benches next to the desk area for
students and post-doctoral fellows. All the sitting desks are equipped for hard-wired and wireless internet
connections. Computers on these desks are also connected for periodic downloading of research data on a
Buffalo drive located in the Dr. Kumar’s office in the Tidewater Building for safety of data and as a back-up
option.
Insectaries: Dr. Kumar’s laboratory maintains state-of-the-art brand new insectaries (Rms. 518-519, 669 sq.
ft.) with temperature – humidity and –light control options for breeding colonies of An. gambiae and An.
Steophensi in dedicated chambers. These are used for malaria infection and transmission studies. These
insectaries have multiple physical barriers for safe handling and are approved by the Tulane Bio-safety Office
and USDA. In addition, Millipore Water purification units supply best quality water for maintaining Anopheles
colonies. Infected mosquitoes are housed in self-contained incubators and are handled in a separate room
equipped with six dissecting microscopes, centrifuge and circulating water baths for mosquito infection by
membrane feeding, built within the general insectary area. In JBJ Building, there are separate insectary
facilities for work with Aedes and Culex mosquitoes, including insectaries in certified BSL3 labs.
Animal Facilities: Research on animals is supported by the department of vivarial sciences and research and
is located on the 7th floor of the building. These AALAC approved facilities use state-of-the-art procedures to
maintain germ-free environment for high quality research. In addition, all the investigators have access to use
of non-human primates for research at the Tulane Primate Research Center.
Major Equipment:
Dr. Kumar’s lab is equipped with all the needed equipments for any aspect of malaria research involving cell
culture, immunology, biochemical and molecular biology approaches.
General: Six -20°C freezers, -80°C Revco freezer, liquid nitrogen tanks, water baths (10), stirrer-hotplates (12),
pH meters, table-top high speed centrifuges (4), micro-centrifuges (8), balances (3), etc.
Cell Culture: Biosafety cabinets, 37°C and CO2 incubators, water baths, microscopes (light and inverted),
dedicated centrifuge, etc.
Immunology: ELISA plate washers, ELISA reader, fluorescence reader, IFA microscopes with digital
photographic capability, cell harvester, etc.
Molecular biology and Protein Chemistry: Bacterial shaking incubators, sonicators, microfluidizer, PCR thermal
cyclers (3), electro-porator (BioRad), dozens of protein and DNA/RNA gel boxes and power supply units,
fraction collector, peristaltic pumps, hybridization chambers, speed vac, gel dryers, GelDoc system, dark room
with automatic X-ray film processor, chemical fume hoods (3), NanoDrop 2000, shaking water baths,
incubators for bacterial and yeast culture plates maintained at different temperatures, homogenizer, light box
for viewing gels, microwave oven and hot air oven, Strata UV X-linker, vacuum oven, spectrophotometer,
rockers, shakers, radioactivity counters, gradient makers, etc.
Other Resources: There are core facilities providing genomic, proteomic and structural biology research
support. In addition, shared instrumentation facility is open to all researchers for use of several centrifuges,
spectrophotometers and FACS analysis. The SOM also maintains core services supporting efficient
procurement of reagents and supplies from vendors such as Fisher, Sigma, and Invitrogen.
Dr. Hong-Wei Deng
The research labs in the JBJ Building house major equipment needed for basic, clinical, and translational
research on musculoskeletal diseases. The labs comprise of wet and dry labs.
The research wet labs occupy approximately 5,000 sq. ft. of the Center of Bioinformatics and Genomics (CBG)
in the JBJ Building. These wet labs house the major equipment for experiments that include, but are not
limited to, large scale genotyping, DNA re-sequencing, transcriptome gene expression profiling, proteomics,
and molecular and cellular functional studies. DNA/RNA/protein extraction and cell isolations (e.g. isolating
monocytes from peripheral blood samples) are routine procedures that are conducted in our research labs, as
exemplified by our ongoing projects and our previous publications.
The research dry labs occupy about 750 sq. ft. and are equipped with computers that contain software
packages for biostatistics, bioinformatics, statistics and genetics directed analysis. The software provides
researchers with the necessary tools for data entry and management services.