UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry Launches Shared Instrumentation Lab Campaign

On Tuesday, May 12, 2026, the UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry launched its Shared Instrumentation Lab Campaign. Our mission is to raise at least $50,000 in 30 days to equip our Molecular Instrumentation Center (MIC) and the Biochemistry Instrumentation Core Facility (BIF) facilities with brand-new instrumentation.  Your support will empower innovation and help equip our students with cutting-edge lab instruments!

This is a great opportunity for supporters to double their impact for cutting-edge research!  Even better—every gift counts double! We’re matching all donations 1:1, and gifts of $5,000 and $100,000 will be matched 2:1.

In Fall 2024, we proudly launched a fundraising campaign aimed at supporting the acquisition of state-of-the-art instrumentation for our MIC and BIF facilities. Since that time, we have raised over $650,000, a remarkable achievement. The funds we raised, along with matching funds, enabled us to acquire over $1,000,000 in state-of-the-art equipment. We are proud to have integrated cutting-edge technology into our labs, including:

• 1260 Infinity II Multisampler
• CFX Opus 96 RT-PCR
• CLARIOstar Plus Plate Reader
• 300 MHz NMR
• Azure Sapphire FL Biomolecular Imager
• Mössbauer Spectrometer with closed-cycle cryostat
• and several other essential instruments for teaching laboratories

These new additions have not only transformed the capabilities of our facilities, enabling new research and student training, but have also significantly upgraded the aesthetics and functionality of the spaces, creating a more modern and inspiring environment for our students and researchers.

We wanted to extend our heartfelt gratitude to all our donors from the previous campaign (see list of donors below). We would like to give a special thank you to June Kim and Karen and Bill Timberlake for their visionary gifts exceeding $100,000. We are also deeply grateful to Professor Mike Jung and his alumni, whose groundbreaking research and the resulting Xtandi patent funds allowed the department to match donations during our last campaign, as well as during the current campaign.

With your support, our students and researchers will have the tools they need to innovate and excel. Thank you for making an impact!

Our Shared Facilities

The Molecular Instrumentation Center (MIC) – The MIC is a campuswide, state-of-the-art core facility that enables the use of modern instrumentation in molecular characterizations. The MIC is housed within and managed through the UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, and is open for Bruin researchers, other academic institutions and commercial enterprises. The purpose of the MIC is to meet the needs of the UCLA scientific community by providing all aspects of technical support in the application of modern instrumentation to solve problems in cutting-edge scientific research.

The Biochemistry Instrumentation Core Facility (BIF) – The UCLA-DOE Biochemistry Instrumentation Core Facility provides the UCLA biochemistry community with easy access to sophisticated instrumentation for a wide variety of biomolecular characterizations, including molecular weight determination, kinetic and thermodynamic analysis of ligand binding, structural characterization, gel documentation and analysis, radioisotope detection, and quantification and spectroscopy.

Penny Jennings, UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, penjen@g.ucla.edu.