About the Molecular biology lab
A learning and working space for everyone!
For questions regarding the Molecular Biology Lab, please contact:
Primary contact: NATALIA BERCOVICH
natalia.bercovich@botany.ubc.ca
BRC room #335
As the lead of the BRC Molecular Biology Laboratory (BRC-MBLab), my role is to provide students and researchers with the expertise, resources, and support they need to successfully carry out their projects using molecular and genomic research tools. I work closely with students offering training and consultation on molecular biology techniques, DNA-based workflows, diverse library preparation protocols, experimental design, equipment use, and troubleshooting. Whether you're planning a new sequencing project, optimizing a protocol, or trying to figure out why your experiment isn't behaving as expected, I'm always happy to help.
What is it?
It’s a professionally managed shared laboratory facility that provides students and postdocs with flexible bench space, state-of the art equipment, workshops & expert training, one-on-one guidance and troubleshooting; supporting everyone’s projects while fostering collaboration, and collective learning.
Where is it?
It is located on the 3rd floor of the Biodiversity Research Centre (BRC), wet lab 360.
Who can use it?
All BRC members and their lab teams are welcome.
How to gain access to the lab?
You can take advantage of the lab in many ways:
- Book a bench spot or equipment in advance for a day or for longer term: see "how to book the available equipment and space" below
- Make an appointment to receive training on the use of a particular instrument
- Coordinate a meeting and make a plan if you require consultation, troubleshooting or supervision to carry out your experiment
- Participate in pop-up beginner or more advanced level workshops: check events calendar here: check BRC Molecular Lab Training series
Please, contact directly Natalia Bercovich to get started and get more detailed information related to your needs: natalia.bercovich@botany.ubc.ca and request lab card access to the third floor if needed.
BRC Molecular Lab TRAINING series
HOW to book the Available LAB equipment and BENCH space?
| Resources inside the MBLab | Quantity | How to book? |
| Bench space | 6 | Please submit the “Lab Booking Form for Bench Space” at the bottom of this page. Bookings are made in one-month blocks. Check the calendar above the form for bench availability. Your booking must be approved before it becomes effective; you will receive an approval email shortly. |
| Blue pippin | 1 | CWL login booking system - make sure the "Molecular Biology Lab" is chosen from drop down menu - centered at the top of page under date |
| Covaris | 1 | |
| Fume-hood | 3 | |
| Tapestration | 1 | |
| Thermocycler - PCR | 4 | |
| Resources outside the MBLab | Quantity | How to book |
| Autoclave | 2 | CWL login booking system - make sure the "Biodiversity Rooms" is chosen from drop down menu - centered at the top of page under the date |
| Glassware washer | 1 | TBD |
MBLab Membership Access Program
Beginning June 1, 2026, we will be introducing a Pilot BRC Molecular Biology Laboratory Membership Access Program to support BRC and BRC affiliated members who require access to shared laboratory space, basic consumables, equipment and technical support for melecular biology work.
This program will provide subscribers with access to a shared laboratory environment and commmon recources to facilitate experimental work, troubleshooting, and overall, better support for researchers on their respective projects.
Program fees:
$100 | per month per person, after 2 people, a flat rate of $200 monthly |
$1000 | annually |
Acess includes:
- shared laboratory space for conducting experiments
- basic consumables - e.g. ethanol for towels, paper towels, laboratory gloves, etc...
- access to shared laboratory equipment
- guidance and technical expertise and troubleshooting support from laboratory staff
- short-term cold storage of samples while conducting labwork
This program is intended to support graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and BRC members who require periodic access to molecular biology facilities without maintaining a dedicated laboratory space. We are piloting this in an effort to make this space and resource financially sustainable. However, we never want finances to be a barrier to using these resources, so please talk to us if this is an issue and we will accommodate your needs.
Additional services
- We can provide service (eg. DNA work, NGS library prep.) for a competitive fee, favourable to BRC members.
- We can provide tailored processing and preliminary analysis/assessment of sequencing data (amplicon barcoding, shotgun, bait capture, environmental/ancient DNA, genome assembly, metagenomics, RNASeq, GBS, etc.) for a competitive fee, favourable to BRC members.
- We can provide training for students & postdocs in command line tools (i.e. R, bash, python, etc.) and bioinformatic pipelines (i.e. amplicon processing, metagenomic mapping and/or assembly, mitochondrial/nuclear genome assembly, etc).
- We have highly pure water to share!
- We have a BRC ULT freezer for emergency or short-term storage of your precious samples
- We also offer long-term storage at -20 for samples properly organized
- Sustainbability is our priority! Reach out to us if you want to participate in our iniciatives and also if you have innovative ideas we can help you put in practice!