This Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) award funds the acquisition of a Bruker-Daltonics SolariXHybrid FTMS Bundle mass spectrometer system at the Iowa State University WM Keck Metabolomics Research Laboratory, and empowers multidisciplinary research from a wide sweep of departments that integrate disciplines of chemistry and biochemistry, biological sciences and engineering. The new instrument system will provide researchers with unprecedented data concerning biological molecules and thus enhance the research infrastructure of the University and the State. The projects supported by the new instrument system attempt to meet the challenge of deciphering functional understanding of genome expression at the metabolic level, and are a mixture of hypothesis-driven research on the structure and regulation of specific metabolic and gene networks, and high-throughput global profiling projects that seek to generate hypotheses concerning gene functionalities. The impact of these research projects will be greatly enhanced the SolariXHybrid FTMS Bundle mass spectrometer system because researchers will be able to more rigorously determine the chemical identities of metabolites and hence generate and test more robust hypotheses concerning the metabolic functionalities of gene products and gene networks.
In addition, this instrument will provide faculty a vehicle for the multi-disciplinary research-based training of students, who will gain insights into how to conduct modern metabolic studies, integrating advances in chemistry and genomics biology. Post-docs, graduate students, undergraduate students from Iowa State University and neighboring colleges, and high-school students and teachers from the State of Iowa will also participate in research. These latter outreach activities will be coordinated through summer workshops, internship programs and NSF-REU programs that are already in place through the Centers (e.g., CBiRC) and projects (e.g., The Arabidopsis 2010 Metabolomics Consortium Project) that will utilize the instrument. Therefore students will be broadly mentored and trained to meet the emerging technological challenges of the 21st century. Results from the research projects will be disseminated through student and faculty presentations at regional or national meetings, and through publications in the peer-reviewed literature.
