Hong Li, PhD - US grants

This award provides funds to support the purchase of an instrument with combined liquid chromatography and advanced time of flight and tandem mass spectrometry capabilities. Recent advances in mass spectrometry have provided unprecedented opportunities for the analysis of proteins, such as internal sequencing, identification of nature and location of post-translational modifications and noncovalent interactions. The system to be purchased will allow the research communities at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and Rutgers University - Newark to take advantage of this state-of-the-art technology in protein research. Currently, there is no instrument available that allows researchers at either institute to sequence and elucidate protein structures using tandem mass spectrometry. Provision of this technology will significantly enhance the quality and productivity of the research on both campuses, as well as at others in the Newark area. The instrument will be placed in a Mass Spectrometry Core Facility available to researchers at both institutions. The projects outlined in this application by the expected major users of the instrument entail basic research into the structure and function of proteins from a wide-range of organisms - human, yeast, bacteria and plants. The types of questions to be addressed will require protein identification and sequencing, nuclear protein complex identification, localization of protein-ligand interactions, enzyme tertiary structure determination, quality control of designer metallo-protein synthesis, internal sequencing of N-terminally blocked proteins, and identification of post-translational modification of proteins. This equipment will be supervised and maintained by an experienced mass spectrometrist who is in charge of the core facility. Three committees drawn from both institutions oversee the fiscal and scientific management and daily operation of this facility.