Trackin’ the vibes at Stanley

05 November 2003

Peg Skorpinski photo

Berkeley staff research scientist Steve Smith, who works with Carlos Bustamante, professor of molecular and cell biology, physics, and chemistry, recently paid a visit to the bottom of the Stanley Biosciences and Bioengineering Facility construction site, where workers have finished excavating for the 11-story building. Using an accelerometer and a laptop, Smith measured the background vibration present at the very location where an advanced optics lab will sit when the new facility is completed in 2006. Many of the lab’s most delicate experiments on single-molecule manipulations will be conducted at night, so Smith took the measurements in the evening as well. Having baseline vibration data will be useful when contractors need to pinpoint the cause of extra vibration during the structure’s commissioning.

Bustamante is one of many Berkeley faculty affiliated with the California Institute for Quantitative Biomedical Research (QB3), to be housed in the Stanley building. The building will be home to powerful equipment for interdisciplinary research on biosciences and bioengineering.