Acquisition of a Liquid Chromatography Mass Spectrometer for Mentored-Student Research in the Chemistry of Environmental Steroids and of Self-Assembled Monolayer Films

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This award will support the acquisition of a liquid chromatograph tandem mass spectrometer (LC-MS) with electrospray (ESI) and atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) probes and simultaneous photodiode array LC detection. The instrument will be used in collaborative research between environmental biology, biochemistry and physical chemistry for projects on plant sterols, androgenic sterols, and alkane thiols.The mass spectrometer will benefit undergraduate students in mentored research projects, who will become better prepared for graduate programs and careers in research. Students studying the components of environmental, animal and plant samples will see the power of LC-MS in quick identification and quantification. The science majors at the university are sixty percent women. For the last three years, two-thirds of the graduating science majors have been women who have pursued graduate programs in biology and chemistry.