Plants

Growth Chambers

The Plants modules are located on the fourth floor of North Campus Building and on the ground floor of the Biotron tower.  This module provides experimental facilities focused on the elucidation of the molecular mechanisms by which photosynthetic organisms as diverse as crop plants, conifers, green algae, and cyanobacteria adjust to climate change.

The Plant module provides facilities that will not only enable basic research in the use of transgenic plants to study plant growth, development, and productivity, but will also enable scientists and industrial partners to assess the ecosystem risks of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) on wild, endemic species. The facilities contain advanced tools for the development of novel GMOs in molecular farming, which consists of genetically engineering plants to produce therapeutic or nutritional substances such as vaccines, antibodies, proteins, enzymes and polymers. 

Plants

The tower location houses six walk-in growth rooms, two reach-in chambers, a pesticide delivery laboratory and a seed storage room. The NCB location houses a combined 9 growth cabinets which include custom-designed, ultra-low growth cabinets which can attain temperatures as low as -20ºC at 80% full sunlight and -40ºC in the dark. In addition, specialized controlled growth facilities are available for modulating CO2 concentrations, temperature, high light, UV levels and humidity singly or in combination in a constant or oscillating mode.