Value Added Services

The Midwest BioLink Commercialization and Business Center will be headed by an experienced Director who can assist tenant businesses in areas such as business development, commercialization, finance, and access to research and collaboration.

BioLink Center tenants have full access, on a pay for service basis, to all the equipment available at the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene. Wisconsin's Lab is second only to the CDC in Atlanta for this type of operation, and is less than 100 yards from BioLink. Through an arrangement with the State Laboratory for Hygiene, all the equipment and capabilities as listed on the attachment are available to BioLink tenants:

Tenants at BioLink and within the Bio-Ag Gateway will have access to the showcase/demonstration field areas of Bio-Ag Gateway to test larger production plantings of experimental field crops.

Shared Equipment Agreement with Wisconsin State Hygiene Lab

ANALYTICAL CAPABILITIES OVERVIEW

• Instrumentation capable of measuring trace levels of volatile organic, semi-volatile organic, and water-soluble compounds, as well as metals, rare earth and essential and non-essential elements, from the PPM (part per million) to PPT (part per trillion) levels
  


• Can perform testing in a variety of environmental and clinical sample matrices, including soil, water, air, algae, plants, fish, blood, urine, tissue and bone.
  


• Molecular extraction and testing capabilities, including real-time PCR as well as pulsed-field gel electrophoresis for DNA "fingerprinting"
  


• Instrumentation capable of measuring individual isotopes and cells in a sample
  


• Ph.D. scientists with expertise in environmental microbiology and soils, water chemistry, air chemistry, engineering, trace elements detection, and medical microbiology and immunology. Many WSLH senior scientists hold joint faculty appointments at UW-Madison in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, College of Engineering, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, and School of Medicine and Public Health
  


• Collaborative working relationships with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency, as well as the WI Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection Laboratory, the WI Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory the WI Department of Health Services and the WI Department of Natural Resources.
  


• Occupational Health and Safety – full-service laboratory, health and safety consultation and engineering, certified industrial hygienists with expertise in measuring contaminants in the workplace

SPECIFIC LABORATORY CAPABILITIES

Pesticide Analysis

Measure most types of pesticides in air, surfaces, water and bulk materials

Water Microbiology

Can perform a range of analyses, including:

• Traditional fertilizers vs. alternative fertilizers – measure organism or pathogen re-growth potential
  


• Manure processing and biosolid processing – measure pathogen content and reduction of pathogen content
  


• Hydroponic – measure microbial content of water and recycled water quality (microbial and chemical)
  


• Microbial source tracking – determining whether water contamination is animal or human, and if animal, what kind (bovine, swine, avian, etc.)
  


• Basic water microbiology – detecting total coliform and E. coli

Inorganic Chemistry

Perform analyses for biological oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand, chlorophyll, nitrates, total nitrogen in a variety of matrices, including soil, liquids and air

Radiochemistry

Perform radiological analyses for a variety of isotopes in different matrices, including soil, plants and water.

Environmental Microbiology

Identify and quantify molds and bacteria in air, liquids, bulk and wipe samples

Pulsed-field Gel Electrophoresis

Identify DNA "fingerprint" of bacteria

ANALYTICAL INSTRUMENTATION

Gas Chromatograph/Mass Spectrometer (GC/MS)

Measure trace levels of volatile organic compounds from a variety of materials, including soil, water, air, sewage, unknown liquids, urine and blood. Capable of low-level measurements -- PPM (parts per million) to PPB (part per billion) levels

High Resolution GC/MS (Hi-Res GC/MS)

Identify unknown organic chemicals in environmental samples, including water, fish, algae, air, etc. Capable of measuring to PPT (parts per trillion) level

High Performance Liquid Chromatograph with Tandem Mass Spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS)

Measure trace levels of semi-volatile organic and water-soluble compounds such as pesticides, pesticide metabolites, pharmaceuticals, antimicrobials, etc. in environmental and clinical specimens, including soil, plants, water, urine, tissue, serum and blood. Capable of measuring PPM (parts per million) to PPB (part per billion) levels

Inductively-Coupled Plasma Emission Mass Spectrometer (ICP/MS)

Measure low levels of metals in virtually any matrix, including soil, water, plants, air, urine, blood, fish. Capable measuring PPM (parts per million) to PPB (part per billion) levels

High Resolution Inductively-Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (Hi-Res ICP/MS)

Quantify heavy metals and rare earth elements in environmental samples (soil, water, algae, plants, air, etc.) and essential and non-essential elements in clinical samples (urine, blood, bone) at extremely low concentrations. The high-resolution capabilities can measure individual isotopes of a specific element. Capable of measuring to PPT (parts per trillion) level

Luminescence Spectrophotometer

Perform chlorophyll analysis in water samples

Real-time PCR and Traditional PCR

Molecular testing techniques for pathogen detection in environmental samples, including biosolids, soil, water, air, as well as clinical samples.

Flow Cytometer and Flow Cytometer with Cell Sorter

Laser-based instruments capable of measuring fluorescent and non-fluorescent light properties of individual particles or cells in a liquid suspension. These properties correlate to size, internal complexity or other characteristics that can be used to program the instrument to physically separate particles of interest from other particles in the specimen solution. This technology can be used to detect rare cells in certain suspensions.

Scanning Transmission Electron Microscope

Instrument capable of imaging materials at magnifications greater than 100,000x and determining elemental composition of particles

Ion Chromatography

Measure trace levels of anions and cations in a variety of matrices

X-Ray Powder Diffraction

Useful for differentiating between materials with different crystal structures, for example different forms of crystalline SiO2 (quartz, cristobalite, tridymite). Solid materials that can be ground into fine powders, such as soil, only

Infrared FTIR Microscope