MALDI-TOF/TOF mass spectrometer including a Basic Imaging Bundle for imaging mass spectrometry

• Subject Area: Neurosciences
• Term: Funded in 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 545044796

In interdisciplinary research at the University of Kassel, in the Center for Interdisciplinary Nanostructure Science and Technology with a research focus on nanotechnology, which includes the biological focus "Multiscale Bioimaging", as well as in the Research Training Group GRK 2749"Multiscale Clocks", biologists from different disciplines work together with chemists, physicists, mathematicians and engineers. In transdisciplinary basic research projects, temporal networks of physiological processes and neuronal circuits for behavioral control are investigated, which enable the embedding of organisms in environmental rhythms, including their effects due to advancing climate change. New techniques and materials for research and industry are being developed in the translational research focus area of nanotechnology. In all these research projects, different types of molecules have to be analyzed. The MALDI TOF/TOF mass spectrometer applied for, including a basic imaging bundle for imaging mass spectrometry (MS), enables the analysis of molecules of different molecular classes (e.g. biogenic amines, lipids, neuropeptides, polymers, proteins) and will be freely accessible to various users in the cooperation model with technical support. In our network, it must be possible to analyze very different samples over a wide concentration range with a resolution of seconds. The system must therefore have a simple and user-friendly user interface. The system must be highly sensitive so that, for example, quantitative molecular analyses from single cell samples in the femtomolar range are possible. The laser frequency, intensity and diameter of the device applied for must also be individually adjustable in order to ensure optimum measurement conditions. Requirements for molecular sequence or structure confirmation from one and the same sample must also be met. For MALDI-based quantification experiments, it must be possible to specifically define a selective ion window in order to (1) achieve high selectivity of defined ion masses and (2) save the respective mass spectrum (parent mode) separately.

• DFG Programme: Major Research Instrumentation
• Major Instrumentation: MALDI-TOF/TOF-Massenspektrometer plus Basic Imaging Bundle für bildgebende Molekülanalyse
• Instrumentation Group: 1700 Massenspektrometer
• Applicant Institution: Universität Kassel
• Leader: Privatdozentin Susanne Neupert, Ph.D.