MRI: Development of an IM-TOF Instrument for a Structural Biology Center

美国国家科学基金会将向德克萨斯农工大学提供资金，用于开发下一代生物分析离子迁移率质谱仪(IM-MS)。这种新的IM-MS将推进最先进的高通量混合物分析，加强生物分子结构的研究，并开发新的生物信息学工具来从IM-MS数据中提取化学信息。尽管在开发IM-MS方面取得了重大进展，但当前仪器设计的复杂性和相关的计算数据解释给非专家用户带来了障碍。成功完成我们的研究目标将显著提高业务能力，即灵敏度、分辨率、初级和高阶结构信息，同时提供用户友好的计算数据解释工具。该仪器将被安置在LBMS中，这是结构生物学中心的核心设施，位于德克萨斯农工大学新建的跨学科生命科学大楼(ILSB)。ILSB的环境将通过向最终用户提供尖端研究能力来加强学生培训和研究。LBMS的生物分析专业学生包括19名学生/博士后，7名女性和4名代表性不足的少数民族，他们将直接与来自蛋白质折叠、蛋白质组学以及植物、结构和系统生物学领域的领先仪器专家和研究人员合作，开发和转让以问题为导向的技术。这些互动以及正在进行的IM-MS与学术、政府和工业实验室的合作有助于加速技术开发和转让。

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.