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

This proposal requires funding to upgrade three key components of a 6-year old Quadrupole time-of-flight (QStar) mass spectrometer. It is part of the Queen's University Mass spectrometry and Proteomics Services Unit (MSPSU) that supports the research programs in Chemistry, Medicine, Biochemistry, Biology and Chemical Engineering at Queen's. This spectrometer is the only instrument at Queen's that can provide high resolution and Tandem mass spectral analyses of high molecular weight molecules including proteins, peptides, polymers, and supramolecular compounds. The three key components of the spectrometer, Laser, multiple channel plate detector, and Turbo pumps are either not functional or near their lifetime, which poses a serious threat to the quality and capability of our MSPSU facility service and will certainly hamper the research efforts by several dozen research groups and more than 100 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows at Queen's. Therefore, the requested funding to upgrade the key components of the spectrometer is critical to maintain the quality and the competiveness of the graduate research and education in Chemistry and Proteomics at Queen's. The QStar instrument supports diverse research programs at Queen's including drug discovery, green chemistry, development of new catalysts for acy and phosphoryl transfer reactions, new chiral and liquid crystal materials, the study of structure and functions of proteins, the investigation of new materials for optoelectronic devices, the examination of self-assembly of guanosines, artificial helices and nucleic acids, and the understanding of the regulatory mechanism and functions of enzymes in plants etc.