Purchase of a Triple Quadrupole Mass Spectrometry System for Metabolite Analysis

Gross, Steven

Abstract

This proposal seeks funds to purchase of an Agilent 6460 triple quadrupole (QqQ) mass spectrometry system that will be shared by 12 NIH-supported investigators at Weill Cornell Medical College (WCMC) for quantification of biomolecules. This instrument fulfills a critical unmet need at WCMC for small molecule quantification and will be made broadly available to investigators by inclusion in our MS core facility. Notably, the Weill Cornell Medical College MS core facility has been in operation since 1997 and continues to be the only source of MS instrumentation and support at the Medical College and its associated hospitals (New York Presbyterian Hospital and the Hospital for Special Surgery). The requested instrument will replace an existent triple-quadrupole MS that is now 13 years old and unusable for our intended purposes due to poor sensitivity, a source design that precludes interfacing with an LC system, inability to make the rapid transitions needed for highly-multiplexed multiple reaction monitoring experiments and inability to utilize ion sources and operating/analysis software that integrates our existing liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry systems for metabolite analyses. The requested instrument will support a solid commitment that Weill Cornell has made to broad-based Metabolite profiling, both targeted and untargeted, as a transformational tool for biomedical investigations. As documented in an accompanying letter from the Dean for Research, WCMC is financially committed to maintaining the instrument and making it available to NIH-supported biomedical scientists for its entire useful lifetime.

Public Health Relevance

This application requests support for the purchase of a Mass Spectrometer that will enhance the efforts of NIH-supported researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College to expand our understanding of human health and disease. Key research areas that are being targeted by the applicants through use of the requested instrument are cancer, infectious diseases, stem cell biology, diabetes, atherosclerosis, colitis and neurogeneration.