MRI: Acquisition of an Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (ICP-MS) and Laser Ablation (LA) System at the University of Massachusetts Boston

麻省大学波士顿分校获得了一份合同，将获得一套电感耦合等离子体质谱计（ICP-MS）和激光烧蚀（LA）系统，用于液体和固体生物、地质和化学介质的元素和同位素分析。该奖项支持来自不同学科（生理学、生物化学、生态学、地质学、海洋科学、工程学）和机构的研究人员和学生。该仪器是大学和外部合作者的宝贵资源，可用于知识产权开发和培训来自马萨诸塞大学波士顿分校以及其他机构的下一代科学家。通过研究和与教育项目的整合，仪器通过为他们提供进一步学习和就业的关键技能，赋予我们多样化的学生群体（42%为少数民族）权力。该仪器是招聘教师的重要工具，对一些正在开发新颖研究项目的年轻教师特别有价值，这些项目充分利用了该仪器的灵活性和敏感性。ICP-MS和LA仪器提供了关键的技术能力，如动态质量范围，能够测量从固体到液体样品中的元素和同位素组成，具有高精度和准确性，超低检测限，以及允许直接测量海水元素组成的多功能性。该仪器促进了动态的多学科研究，范围从生态学应用，如利用海洋和淡水生物硬结构的元素组成，到了解气候变化和人类影响条件下的个体生活史和种群动态。该仪器能够研究纳米颗粒金属对海洋生物的毒性，并研究钙在龙虾壳病发展中的作用。此外，该仪器可以直接测量细胞水平的金属浓度，用于开发新型铂基化疗药物。除了生物研究外，该仪器还支持对地球上最大规模物种灭绝时期（二叠纪-三叠纪，2.5亿年前）的古海洋的研究，对喜马拉雅高海拔农业地区地下水-地表水联系的评估，以及对金属如何在沿海海洋沉积物-水界面上形成和转移的研究。

An award is made to the University of Massachusetts Boston to acquire an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS) and laser ablation (LA) system to be used for elemental and isotopic analysis of liquid and solid biological, geological, and chemical media. This award supports researchers and students from a variety of disciplines (physiology, biochemistry, ecology, geology, marine science, engineering) and institutions. This instrumentation is an invaluable resource for University and external collaborators enabling intellectual property development and training the next generation of scientists, from UMass Boston as well as other institutions. Through research and integration with educational programs, the instrumentation empowers our diverse student body (42% minority) by providing them with critical skills for further study and employment. This instrumentation serves as a crucial tool for recruiting faculty and is particularly valuable to several young faculty who are developing novel research projects that take full advantage of the flexibility and sensitivity of this instrumentation.The ICP-MS and LA instrumentation provides key technological capabilities such as a dynamic mass range, the ability to measure elemental and isotopic compositions in samples from solid to liquid with high precision and accuracy, ultra-low detection limits, and the versatility to allow for direct measurement of seawater elemental composition. The dynamic, multidisciplinary research facilitated by this instrumentation ranges from ecological applications such as using the elemental composition of hard structures in marine and freshwater organisms to understand individual life histories and population dynamics under conditions of climate change and human impacts. The instrumentation enables research on the toxicity of nanoparticle metals on marine organisms and the study of the role of calcium in the development of shell disease in lobsters. In addition, the instrumentation allows for direct measurement of cellular level metal concentrations which are used in the development of novel platinum-based chemotherapies. In addition to biological research the instrumentation supports the study of the paleoocean at the time of the largest mass extinction on Earth (Permian-Triassic, 250 million years ago), the evaluation of groundwater-surface water connections in agricultural regions of the high Himalaya, and the study of how metals are speciated and transferred across the sediment-water interface in coastal oceans.