A dual-source ion mobility mass spectrometry system

Abstract The enclosed application seeks to add a dual source ion mobility hybrid mass spectrometry system for biomedical research at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), a federally designated minority serving institution. This instrumentation would enable state-of-the art measurements for researchers at UIC as well as their collaborators in the Midwest, nationally and internationally. The instrument will be housed and maintained in the Department of Chemistry Instrumentation Core and will be the first high-resolution mass spectrometer in the Core and will replace current MALDI-MS instrumentation that is more than a decade old, currently being used for mass spectrometry imaging which is owned and shared by the PI. The major and minor user group reflects the diverse biomedical research on the UIC campus and span cancer, neurodegeneration, public health and more. Moreover, users are members of multiple NIH funded research centers (e.g. P01 and P30) on the UIC campus. The major applications of this new instrumentation are proteomics, lipidomics, and metabolomics workflows. Approximately half of the user group will also utilize the MALDI mass spectrometry imaging capabilities. Addition of this new instrumentation will enable new discoveries owing to the improved analytical performance of the Bruker timsTOF Flex including the dual ESI/MALDI source design, trapped ion mobility separation, improved sensitivity and resolution, as well as increased speed for performing complex measurement. The PI has more than 18 years of mass spectrometry experience and will work closely with the user groups, advisory group and core instrumentation specialist for streamlined access and utilization for biomedical research.