Funds are requested to purchase an Accurate-Mass Q-TOF LC/MS mass spectrometer system from Agilent Technologies. The major components of the requested mass spectrometer system (Model Number 6520) include: an accurate mass Q-TOF mass spectrometer equipped with a dual spray electrospray ionization (ESI) ion source, an HPLC-Chip cube mass spectrometry (MS) interface, a nanoflow liquid chromatography (LC) system;and the requisite data system and software to acquire, view, and manipulate mass spectral data. The requested instrument, which will be housed and maintained in the Duke Chemistry Department's Instrument Facility, will not only help meet the general mass spectrometry needs of the eight major users outlined in this proposal, but it will also help meet the general mass spectrometry needs of the Facility's entire user base, which includes 20+ faculty members in the Chemistry Department and 100+ graduate students and post-doctoral researchers in the Chemistry Department, as well as number of researchers from other departments at Duke (many of which are involved in NIH-supported research projects). The proposed instrument will facilitate the analysis of a wide variety of sample types, including small organic molecules as well as both synthetic and naturally occurring biopolymers. The Chemistry Department's need to add a Q-TOF mass spectrometer system to its Instrument Facility is three-fold: (1) it will provide replacement capabilities for an aging workhorse, the 16 year old JEOL SX-102 HRMS system, in the Department's Instrument Facility;(2) it will reduce the backlog of samples/users associated with another of the Department's workhorse mass spectrometers, a 7 year old Agilent IonTrap LC-MS system;and (3) it will bring exciting new proteomics capabilities to the Chemistry Department Instrument Facility, which is the only shared resource on campus to offer appropriately trained users direct walk-up access to its instruments. The reliability, robustness, and ease-of-use afforded by the requested instrument with its HPLC-Chip cube MS interface will greatly facilitate operation of the instrument in the Chemistry Department Facility's open access environment. This will make the instrument a unique resource on the Duke campus.
Funds are requested for the Duke University Chemistry Department Instrument Facility to purchase an Accurate-Mass Q-TOF LC/MS mass spectrometer system from Agilent Technologies. The instrument will be uniquely configured to facilitate the characterization of a wide variety of sample types ranging from small organic molecules to large naturally occurring biopolymers. The instrument will be available for direct walk-up use by appropriately trained users of the Duke Chemistry Department's Instrument Facility, many of whom are engaged in NIH-supported research.
