MRI: Acquisition of a Shared Multi Collector Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer for Ocean, Earth, Environmental, and Geobiological Sciences in Southern California

MRI：购买一台共享多收集器电感耦合等离子体质谱仪，用于南加州的海洋、地球、环境和地球生物科学

• 批准号: 1920355
• 负责人: A Joshua West
• 金额: $ 55.88万
• 依托单位: University of Southern California
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-08-15 至 2021-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1920355&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: MRI; Acquisition; Shared; Multi; Collector

Metals are necessary to life on Earth, yet they can also be toxic. Measurement of metals has applications in geology, oceanography, ecology, environmental science, and medicine. The acquisition of a multiple collector-inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer, or MC-ICPMS, will enable new scientific discoveries in metals analysis to address major scientific questions across many scientific disciplines. This instrument will be housed at USC; users will include scientists within the university and at other academic institutions and government agencies in Southern California. The instrumentation will enable societally relevant research, increase opportunities for training students and early career researchers, enhance teaching and community engagement, and support governmental agencies in their mission. Life depends on elements from across the periodic table, and the availability of these elements to organisms is often controlled by geochemical processes. At the same time, some elements, especially metals, can be deadly environmental contaminants: some of the most widely known public health disasters have resulted from lead, mercury, and chromium poisoning. The multi-faceted functions of metals, and their perturbation due to human activities, make them compelling tracers of biological, environmental, marine, and Earth processes. While metals in the natural environment and the human body have been researched for decades, the capability to measure natural variability in their isotope ratios has emerged relatively recently, primarily since the early 2000s, and has transformed our understanding of many components of the Earth system. As the applications of metal isotope analysis spreads from the geosciences to fields such as medicine and environmental engineering, these chemical tools are poised to have a growing impact. Acquiring a Multiple Collector-Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (MC-ICPMS) instrument at the University of Southern California (USC) would enable exciting new applications of isotopic analysis, taking advantage of the expertise and research interests of the principle investigators, coupled with a wide range of users spanning multiple disciplines and multiple institutions in the southern California region. Metals will be a major focus of attention, with elements from Li to U all serving as targets of interest for the insights that they can provide in research areas including oceanography, hydrology and paleobiology, as well as environmental health, medicine, and more. The proposed instrument will be a cornerstone of a new Southern California Center for Elemental and Isotopic Analysis, which will also encompass existing, complementary instrumentation. Novel application of MC-ICPMS technology will be enabled by (i) focusing on analysis of large-scale sample sets, (ii) widening the intellectual reach of MC-ICPMS techniques, including in areas such as human biology and public health, and (iii) serving a wide user base in southern California, particularly enabling novel and exploratory science that is not possible when researchers are relying on instruments at remote facilities. Broader impacts will include providing an instrument for training future leaders in the isotope sciences, enabling science for the public good by building research-education partnerships with government agencies, and offering a platform for developing new graduate-level curriculum.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

金属对于地球上的生命是必不可少的，但也可能是有毒的。金属的测量在地质，海洋学，生态学，环境科学和医学中都有应用。获得多个收藏家诱导耦合等离子体质谱仪或MC-ICPM的获取将使金属分析中的新科学发现能够解决许多科学学科的主要科学问题。该乐器将安置在南加州大学；用户将包括大学内的科学家以及南加州的其他学术机构和政府机构。该仪器将使社会相关的研究能够增加培训学生和早期职业研究人员的机会，增强教学和社区参与，并支持政府机构的任务。生命取决于元素周期表的元素，这些元素对生物的可用性通常受地球化学过程控制。同时，一些元素，尤其是金属可能是致命的环境污染物：铅，汞和铬中毒造成的一些最广为人知的公共卫生灾难。金属的多面功能及其由于人类活动引起的扰动，使它们引人入胜的示踪剂是生物，环境，海洋和地球过程。尽管自然环境中的金属和人体已经研究了数十年，但衡量其同位素比的自然变异性的能力已经相对较新，主要是自2000年代初以来，并改变了我们对地球系统许多组成部分的理解。随着金属同位素分析的应用从地球科学传播到医学和环境工程等领域，这些化学工具有望产生增长的影响。在南加州大学（USC）获得多个收藏家耦合等离子体质谱仪（MC-ICPMS）仪器，将利用主要调查人员的专业知识和研究利益，使同位素分析的新应用具有令人兴奋的新应用，并与广泛的多个跨越多个学科和多个Institution的用户和南加州区域中的多种用户相结合。金属将成为关注的主要重点，从李到U的要素都将成为他们在海洋学，水文学和古生物学以及环境健康，医学等研究领域提供的见解的目标。拟议的仪器将是新的南加州元素和同位素分析中心的基石，该中心还将涵盖现有的互补仪器。 （i）专注于大规模样本集的分析，（ii）扩大MC-ICPMS技术的智力范围，包括在人类生物学和公共卫生等领域，以及（iii）在南加州的广泛用户基础上，尤其是在研究人员的远程方面不可能依靠，将启用MC-ICPMS技术的新颖应用，（i）扩大了MC-ICPMS技术的智力范围，以及（iii）在南加州，尤其是无需在研究人员方面依靠工具，将其服务于南加州，尤其是在加利福尼亚州的智力范围。 Broader impacts will include providing an instrument for training future leaders in the isotope sciences, enabling science for the public good by building research-education partnerships with government agencies, and offering a platform for developing new graduate-level curriculum.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.