Campus Environment
Chartered in 1887, North Carolina State University is a Land Grant University that is a member institution of the University of North Carolina system of Universities. NC State offers Baccalaureate degrees in 89 fields of study, Master level degrees in in 81 fields, and Doctoral degrees in 51 fields. With a student enrollment of greater than 27,000, NC State University is the largest University in North Carolina.
The NC State campus is located in the heart of the capitol city of Raleigh on 1800 acres of land and is part of the North Carolina Research Triangle, which also consists of the University of North Carolina and Duke University. NC State University maintains research and extension farms and other facilites throughout the state on more than 100,000 acres of land. Raleigh is conveniently located about 250 miles east of the Appalachian mountains and about 150 miles west of the North Carolina beaches, including the Outer Banks. With Washington, D.C. or Atlanta, Georgia within five hours driving distance, the opportunities for weekend recreational trips are excellent. For more information on NC State University, follow this link.
The Department of Molecular and Structural Biochemistry at NC State is one of 22 departments in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS). Other departments in CALS range from Animal Sciences, Food Sciences, Genetics, Microbiology, Plant Pathology, to Zoology. The Biochemistry Department is located on three of four floors of Polk Hall, which contains over 100,000 square feet of space, and the departments of Chemistry, Physics, Microbiology, and Genetics are nearby. Polk Hall is conveniently located near the D. H. Hill Library, which has been selected as one of six "Research Libraries of the Future" by the Association of Research Libraries, and through membership in the Triangle Research Libraries Network the Library offers access to more than 11 million volumes. Members of the Biochemistry Department collaborate with colleagues from the NC State Centennial Campus, located 2 miles from the main campus, as well as colleagues from the Research Triangle Park, which is located about 10 miles west of Raleigh.
The Biochemistry Department has 14 faculty members, 8 Associate members, and
5 Adjunct faculty
(see the
Faculty Research Page for more information). Currently in the
department there are 30 graduate students and 11 Post-doctoral Associates and Research Scientists.
The department is well equipped to carry out research in biochemistry,
biophysics, molecular
biology, and molecular genetics. Equipment for the biophysical analysis of
proteins and nucleic acids include a 500 MHz NMR spectrometer, steady-state
and stopped-flow spectrometers for fluorescence and circular dichroism
measurements, an area dectector and Aveonics GX13 X-ray source for
crystallographic studies. In addition, support facilities located nearby
include the
For information on other support facilities see the NC State Biotechnology Program home page. Equipment located in Polk Hall include numerous autoclaves, dishwashers, and cold rooms as well as equipment for the large scale growth of bacterial cells and cell cultures, facilities for tissue cultures, UV fluorescent microscopes, pulsed-field electrophoresis, electroporation, ultracentrifuges, and ultralow freezers. Departmental computers are linked to the University computing network via a departmental server, and the Biochemistry Computing Facilities provide state of the art software packages for molecular modeling, structure prediction, and molecular graphics in addition to providing direct access to the Triangle Universities' Cray Supercomputer.