Nicolás M. Morato Gutiérrez, Purdue University, Agilent 9-month Fellowship Recipient
My research is primarily oriented towards developing the capabilities of desorption electrospray ionization (DESI) mass spectrometry (MS) for high throughput analysis. For instance, I have worked in extending the applications of this technology to label-free quantitative enzymatic assays, combinatorial reaction screening, and rapid profiling of complex biological samples, all with no sample preparation. My future plans include expanding the range of biological assays compatible with direct DESI-MS analysis, integrating high throughput DESI with novel MS/MS scans, and establishing an automated screening-synthesis-bioanalysis drug discovery platform based on rapid and robust DESI-MS analysis and reaction acceleration in microdroplets.
Kira Rahn, Iowa State University, Eli Lilly and Company 9-month Fellowship Recipient
During the fellowship period, I will characterize square wave voltammetry (SWV) on bipolar electrodes (BPEs) with an electrochemiluminescent reporting reaction. The platform will be used to detect DNA amplicons resulting from LAMP to demonstrate the sensitivity and utility of SWV on BPEs. This fundamental characterization can be applied in the future on multiplexed or parallelized BPE sensors equipped with sensitive and selective electrochemical aptasensors.
Neha Srikumar, University of Pennsylvania, SACP Summer Fellowship Recipient
My thesis work involves building mass spectrometer coupled microfluidic devices that can improve and extend the reach of current proteomic and structural biology studies. I am focusing my current efforts toward developing a microfluidic device that will increase the temporal resolution of hydrogen-deuterium exchange mass spectrometry (HDX-MS) to more rigorously identify structural events during folding, probe protein binding interactions, and study disordered regions of proteins. I have successfully built a first version of the device using silicon and glass microfabrication techniques and I plan to begin testing of my mixer’s capabilities using fluorescence quenching and FRET based experiments. After optimizing the device to make it fully mass spec compatible (adding accelerated proteolytic digestion interface and electrospray ionization orifice), I will explore antibody-protein binding pockets and explore intrinsically disordered proteins transient structures down to the amino acid side chain and post-translational modification level, a feat previously not accomplished with prior HDX work on proteins.