Upgrade of the Lakehead instrument laboratory GC-MS instrument for biotechnology research

气相色谱-质谱法（GC-MS）是一种鉴定生产过程中产生的或存在于环境、植物组织或动物组织（包括人体）中的低水平化合物的方法。这些分子对于更好地理解如何制造具有独特特性的高价值材料，基因如何调节植物和动物的生长和发育，以及一些低水平的环境污染物如何对人类健康产生深远影响可能很重要。GC-MS是一种允许研究人员识别和量化这些分子的技术。湖首大学现有的GC-MS可以从复杂的混合物中分离和分辨组分，但其灵敏度有限。这意味着必须使用大量的起始样品才能检测化合物。然而，许多生物和化学样品是小的，例如，在活检期间提取的少量人类细胞，或在研究实验室中的化学反应期间合成的产物的微克。通过将该仪器从低灵敏度的单四极杆升级为三重四极杆，GC-MS的灵敏度将提高10倍或更多，从而允许使用更小的样品进行分析。此外，升级将提供更准确的数据，因为在化合物通过仪器期间产生的离子发出的峰得到更好的分辨。这也允许化合物的准确定量，这对于开发用于疾病检测的新医学测试程序是必要的。升级后的仪器将支持广泛的研究在湖首和显着提高化学家，生物学家和医学科学家在大学产生的研究的质量和数量。升级后的GC-MS将允许在湖首的年轻科学家在定量技术，是在加拿大工业，如制药研究，生物技术和生物化学非常高的需求培训。更高分辨率的GC-MS对于推进环境和医学生物技术研究至关重要，该研究开始在湖首蓬勃发展。

Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) is a method of identifying low levels of compounds produced during a manufacturing process or that are present in the environment, plant tissues, or animal tissues, including the human body. These molecules may be important for better understanding how to make higher value materials with unique properties, how genes regulate the growth and development of plants and animals, and how low levels of some environmental contaminants exert a profound effect on human health. GC-MS is a technology that allows researchers to identify and quantify these molecules. The existing GC-MS at Lakehead University can separate and resolve components from complex mixtures, but is limited in its sensitivity. This means that a large starting sample must be used in order to detect compounds. However, many biological and chemical samples are small, for example, the small number of human cells extracted during a biopsy, or micrograms of product synthesized during a chemical reaction in a research laboratory. By upgrading this instrument from a low sensitivity single quadrupole to a triple quadrupole, the GC-MS will then have a ten-fold or more increase in outright sensitivity, allowing the use of much smaller samples for analysis. Additionally, the upgrade will provide more accurate data because the peaks given off by the ions produced during the passage of the compound through the instrument are better resolved. This also allows accurate quantification of compounds, which is necessary for the development of new medical testing procedures for disease detection. The upgraded instrument will support a broad range of research at Lakehead and significantly boost the quality and quantity of research generated by chemists, biologists, and medical scientists at the University. The upgraded GC-MS will allow the training of young scientists at Lakehead in a quantitiative technique that is in very high demand in Canadian industries, such as pharmaceutical research, biotechnology and biochemistry. The higher resolution GC-MS is critical for advancing environmental and medical biotechnology research that is beginning to flourish at Lakehead.