The George Washington University
CASHP and the HEBDP is located in a spacious townhouse (2114 G Street), adjacent to the Anthropology and Biology Departments, which was renovated and refurbished with help from the National Science Foundation (SBE96-02741). CASHP includes offices for graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, space for secretarial support, a seminar room, computer rooms, a histology lab, and the Skeletal Biology Laboratory which includes space and state-of-the-art equipment for three-dimensional morphometrics, kinematics, EMG, strain gauge analysis, radiography, and fluorescent microscopy. The Lisner Lab includes a geochemistry lab with equipment for extraction and analysis of organic materials from fossils, a HPLC (High performance liquid chromatography) and GC (Gas chromatography) instrumentation for amino acid racemization and for characterization of ancient proteins and amino acids in fossil materials, image analysis, and a huge cast collection of fossil hominid crania and postcrania. Facilities are also available to prepare shell and bone samples for stable isotope analysis.

GWU has also funded several genetics labs, and is building a forensic DNA lab in the Forensics Department. This laboratory will have specialized facilities for isolating and analyzing trace amounts of DNA (in conjunction with the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory).

Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian facilities and equipment will be available at the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), the Museum Support Center (MSC) and the National Zoological Park (NZP) research center. The NMNH houses two scanning electron microscopes (SEM), a CAT-scanner, specialized x-ray equipment, and an excellent cast collection of hominid fossils. In addition, the museum has unparalleled research collections of human skeletal material, and one of the most extensive collections of non-human primate skeletal material in the world. Its Paleobiology department houses the program in the Evolution of Terrestrial Ecosystems, which has a large database of fossil and environmental information on Cenozoic sites. Within the Anthropology department, the NMNH has allocated laboratory space and research support for the Human Origins Program. The museum also houses a large casting facility, thin-section preparation facilities, conservation laboratories and excellent specialized library resources pertaining to anthropology and paleobiology. Finally, the NMNH houses the Applied Morphometrics laboratory, which is equipped with 3D digitizing equipment. At the MSC, students have access to the Anthropology Department's Archaeobiological Laboratories with extensive comparative collections and facilities for the study of faunal and botanical remains, as well as state-of-the-art plotting and digitizing equipment. Also at the MSC are a laboratory for the study of ancient DNA, a stable isotope laboratory, an SEM with a microprobe, and other laboratories. The NZP houses numerous primate species, and has recently constructed an exhibit/research facility on ape intelligence. The Zoo also houses state-of-the-art 3D image-capturing instrumentation.

University of Maryland
UMD has made the development of Life Sciences one of its main priorities in the next five years and is dedicating large resources towards this goal. The departments of Biology and Cell and Molecular Biology have fully-equipped, state-of-the art molecular biology and computer analysis laboratories. In addition, the Anthropology department has provided over 1000 square feet of newly renovated laboratory space for studies of human origins and biocultural evolution. Facilities are available for high-throughput sequencing and SNP detection including multiple automated capillary sequencers, a dHPLC machine, a Perkin Elmer 7700 quantitative PCR machine, numerous PCR machines, and robotics equipment. Other facilities available to HEBDP students include a slide-maker, photographic equipment, transmission and scanning electron microscopes, computing facilities, analytic spectrophotometers, an amino-acid analyzer, autoradiography facilities, and a microarray facility. In addition, the University of Maryland is in the process of developing a Center for Computational Biology which will offer excellent resources in the areas of bioinformatics, systematics and phylogenetics, genomics, proteomics, and other computational biology-related studies.

Howard University
Research laboratories are located in contiguous space in two buildings with additional space in the cancer center and university hospital, and the super computer facility. The Human Genome Diversity (HGD) Lab at Howard University is part of the National Human Genome Center in 7500 square feet, of which the HGD lab is 1,600 square feet. The Genome Center contains 4 ABI automated 377 sequencers and 12 Perkin Elmer 9700 thermocyclers. The center will also contain a 1,200 square foot molecular biology laboratory for functional assays, mutation detection, and positional cloning, and a separate tissue culture facility for extraction of DNA from blood samples and EBV cell transformation. Also available are industrial freezers, refrigerators, centrifuges and a dark room, and an electron microscope.

Carnegie Institution of Washington
The CIW Geophysical Laboratories includes state-of-the-art equipment for Stable Isotope Analysis including a new Finnigan Delta + XL mass spectrometer with an elemental analyzer; a Finnigan MAT 252 mass spectrometer for C, H, N, and O isotopes; Infrared CO2 laser fluorination system; Hewlett Packard Gas chromatograph mass spectrometers; Solid State NMR with probes; Varian Gas chromatographs, etc.