With this award from the Chemistry Research Instrumentation and Facilities: Departmental Multi-User Instrumentation program (CRIF:MU), Professor V. Ramamurthy and colleagues Burjor Captain, Angel E. Kaifer, Francisco M. Raymo and Norito Takenaka of the University of Miami will acquire a liquid chromatography electrospray ionization mass spectrometer. Research activities that will be facilitated by the new instrumentation include investigations of supramolecular photochemistry and electrochemistry, studies of molecular self-assembly, elucidation of protein signaling pathways, development of helical chiral asymmetric catalysts, synthesis of hydrogen-storing metal clusters and investigations of luminescent switches for fluorescent spectroscopy.
In a liquid chromatograph interfaced mass spectrometer, the chromatograph separates a mixture into its molecular components. These flow into the mass spectrometer where they are ionized by an electrospray technique. The mass spectrometer measures the molecular mass of each component and its fragments. This facilitates determination of the structure of the constituents of the mixture. The electrospray ionization technique allows large nonvolatile molecules such as proteins and supramolecular clusters to be analyzed directly from the liquid phase. This acquisition will benefit undergraduate and graduate students through research programs in the department and will allow the introduction of this modern analytical technique into undergraduate chemistry laboratories.
Through the fund provided by NSF we have purchased and installed a Bruker Liquid Chromatography Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometer (LC-ESI MS) with Time-Of-Flight (TOF) analyzer and MS-MS capabilities. This is currently is used in research and educational activities by the faculty of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Miami. This instrument has replaced an obsolete VG Trio-2 MS system (acquired in 1989) that is mostly used in the FAB ionization mode. The new instrument has helped a large fraction of ongoing active research within the Department of Chemistry and also the Department of Biology. The acquisition of the ESI MS instrument has helped the research of three of the five junior faculty members in the Department of Chemistry, increasing their ability to collect experimental results that they needed to obtain research support from NSF and other federal agencies. By collecting preliminary data using the newly acquired ESI-LC-MS, two of the three new junior faculty members have already secured NSF funding and one is attempting to obtain Federal funding. In addition to the beneficial impact on departmental research, the purchase of the LC-ESI MS system is felt in teaching programs, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. New laboratory experiments carried out during the last two years have exposed all chemistry juniors and seniors to electrospray ionization mass spectrometry. Availability of the instrument has improved the quality of education that our graduate students and post docs received as part of their training. Acquisition of the new instrument has strengthened our mass spec needs that are essential for characterization of organic and inorganic compounds and has projected our department to be a very good place to carry out graduate studies and conduct high level research. This has helped us to enlarge our graduate student population (from 30 before the LC-ESI MS days to 55 now) and faculty strength from 13 to 17. Overall the support provided by NSF has allowed us to provide quality education to undergraduate and graduate students, attract high quality faculty members and larger number of graduate students and secure more federal funding for research.
