This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
With this award from the Chemistry Research Instrumentation and Facilities: Instrument Development (CRIF:ID) program, Valery Voinov, Douglas Barofsky and Max Deinzer and their research group at Oregon State University will develop a novel electromagnetostatic (EMS) electron capture dissociation (ECD)/collision-induced dissociation (CID) cell for use in tandem mass spectrometry. The proposed EMS cell would be more robust, simpler to implement, require less maintenance than current dissociation cells, which employ designs with rapidly varying electric forces. Voinov and his collaborators will provide their research students (undergraduate and graduate) with training in instrument design and development, and will work with a number of campus programs to highlight the impact of mass spectrometry on a number of areas from forensic science to human health.
New kinds of mass spectrometry techniques open up brand new avenues of research. The instrument developed with this award will allow scientists to study the structure of complex molecules with two complementary fragmentation methods in a single collision cell. The instrument to be developed will enable scientists to rapidly determine the complex structures of bio-molecules -- an area of significant practical importance. Increasingly, mass spectrometry has enabled rapid advances in a number of areas with significant societal impact -- from biomedicine to criminalistics. Technology like that developed in the present award will aid in future advances in these and other areas.
