Facilities

James L. Sorenson Molecular Biotechnology Building (SMBB)

We are co-located with eight other neural engineering and quantitative neuroscience research groups, on the fourth floor of the James L. Sorenson Molecular Biotechnology Building (SMBB). This building bridges the University of Utah's health science and main campuses, strategically positioned between the central offices of the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine to the east and the John & Marcia Price College of Engineering to the west. SMBB houses the administrative arm of the Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) and over half of the primary BME faculty.

In addition, SMBB is a center for quantitative neuroscience activity on campus. It is home to numerous neuroscience faculty and labs --- from the College of Engineering (BME and Electrical & Computer Engineering), the College of Pharmacy (Pharmacology and Toxicology) and the School of Medicine (Neurobiology, Neurology, and Ophthalmology) --- primarily on the fourth floor. Our lab comprises ~1000 ft² of this fourth floor, with adjacent office space for Chuck and the other lab members.

Aside from our lab-specific space, the building houses several shared facilities: surgical suites, an imaging core, a microscopy core, and the Utah Nanofab. The imaging core is equipped with a 7T MRI, micro-CT, micro-PET, micro-SPECT, and fluorescence tomography. The microscopy core includes transmission and scanning electron microscopes, an atomic force microscope, an x-ray spectroscope, and several confocal and multi-photon microscopes. The Utah Nanofab includes a >13,000 ft² clean room (ISO 5/6/7) replete with machinery for microfabrication. We utilize any and all of these tools to advance neuromodulation techniques and understand neural information processing.