Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

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.