Cambridge Campus Facilities

The Cambridge campus provides graduate students in the life sciences with superlative facilities to conduct cutting-edge research, including:

• Bauer Core Facility
• Center for Nanoscale Systems Facilities
• The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University
• FAS Center for Systems Biology
• Genome Modification Facility
• Mass Spectrometry and Proteomics Resource Laboratory
• Harvard University Herbaria
• Harvard Forest
• Harvard Center for Biological Imaging
• The Museum of Comparative Zoology
• Harvard Stem Cell Institute
• Harvard University Center for the Environment
• Harvard Origins of Life Initiative
• The Program for Evolutionary Dynamics
• Microbial Sciences Initiative

Harvard Medical School Facilities

The Longwood Medical Area in Boston comprises one of the most concentrated areas of scientific research facilities in the United States. World-class facilities include:

• Biopolymers Facility
• Nikon Imaging Center
• Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center DNA Resource Core
• Quad Machine Shop
• SBGrid Computing Core and Software Consortium
• Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Flow Cytometry/Longwood Medical Area CyTOF Core
• Image and Data Analysis Core 
• Taplin Mass Spectrometry Facility
• Thermo Fisher Scientific Center for Multiplexed Proteomics
• HMS Microfluidics Facility
• Drosophila RNAi Screening Center
• ICCB-Longwood Screening Facility
• NERCE Small Molecule Screening and Medicinal Chemistry Core
• Molecular Electron Microscopy
• Harvard NeuroDiscovery Center's Enhanced Neuroimaging Core
• NERCE Live-Cell Imaging Core
• Neurobiology Imaging Facility
• OMX Blaze Structured Illumination Super-Resolution Microscope
• Wyss Institute Imaging Core
• Electron Microscopy Facility (conventional)
• Plasmid Repository
• The Genome Engineering Production Group
• Image and Data Analysis
• Genomics & Computational Biology Resources
• Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Core
• Translational Cancer Imaging Facility
• Zebrafish Core

Many HILS faculty affiliates have their laboratories at some of the world’s premier medical research entities located at the Harvard Medical School and throughout the greater Boston area. These include:

• Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
• Brigham and Women’s Hospital
• Broad Institute
• Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine and the Immune Disease Institute (PCMM/IDI)
• Children’s Hospital
• Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
• Joslin Diabetes Center
• Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary
• Massachusetts General Hospital
• McLean Hospital
• Mount Auburn Hospital
• Schepens Eye Research Institute
• Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital
• Jamaica Plain Campus, Veterans Administration Boston Healthcare System

Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health Facilities

The Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health's state-of-the-art research institutes and centers include:

• Center for Biostatistics in AIDS Research
• Center for Health Communication
• François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights
• Harvard AIDS Institute
• Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies
• Harvard Center for Risk Analysis
• Harvard Education and Research Center
• Harvard Injury Control Research Center
• Harvard NIEHS Center for Environmental Health
• Center for Health Decision Science
• John B. Little Center for Radiation Sciences and Environmental Health
• Superfund Research Program
• Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics
• Harvard School of Public Health Center for Work, Health, and Well-being
• Center for Global Tobacco Control
• Harvard School of Public Health Prevention Research Center
• Harvard Global Health Institute

Harvard School of Dental Medicine Facilities

The Harvard School of Dental Medicine's cutting-edge research resources include:

• Harvard School of Dental Medicine MicroCT Core
• The Laboratory for Innovative Translational Technologies

Facilities available at the HSDM-affiliated Forsyth Institute include:

• Bioinformatics Core
• Human Oral Microbe Identification Using Next Generation Sequencing (HOMINGS)
• Biostructure Core Facility
• Epidemiology and Biostatistics Core
• Flow Cytometry/Cell Sorter Core
• Mass Spectrometry Core
• Forsyth Sequencing Core

Harvard Core Facilities

Core Facilities (“Cores”) are shared central laboratories, each capable of performing a specific set of experimental functions that enable investigators to perform experiments more efficiently and at a more affordable cost. Cores facilitate research activity by providing resources and services that are beyond the means of most individual labs. Harvard is fortunate to have a world-class array of these important resources, some of which are shown above.

The Harvard Catalyst group maintains a list of Harvard's Core Facilities, many of which are of interest to life sciences PhD students. Each Core lab observes its own set of policies and procedures; be sure to contact each Core's administrative staff to confirm it fits with your research interest and that you will have access to it.