The National Science Foundation is awarding Texas A&M University funds to develop a next generation, bioanalytical ion mobility-mass spectrometer (IM-MS). This new IM-MS will advance state-of-the-art high-throughput mixture analysis, enhance structural studies of biomolecules, and develop new bioinformatic tools to extract chemical information from IM-MS data. Although significant progress has been made in developing IM-MS, the complexity of current instrument designs and associated computational data interpretation impose obstacles to non-expert users. Successful completion of our research goals will significantly improve operational capabilities, i.e., sensitivity, resolution, primary and higher order structural information, while providing user-friendly computational data interpretation tools.
This instrument will be housed in the LBMS, a core facility of the Structural Biology Center located in the newly constructed Interdisciplinary Life Sciences Building (ILSB) at Texas A&M University. The environment of the ILSB will enhance student training and research by providing cutting-edge research capabilities to end-users. Bio-analytical students in the LBMS, 19 students/post-docs, 7 females and 4 underrepresented minorities, will work directly with leading instrument specialists and researchers from areas of protein folding, proteomics, and plant, structural and systems biology on problem-driven technology development and transfer. These interactions and the on-going IM-MS collaborations with academic, government, and industrial laboratories serve to accelerate technological development and transfer.
