MRI: Track 1: Acquisition of a Liquid Chromatography-High Resolution Mass Spectrometry System for Multidisciplinary Research and Training

This award is funded by the Major Research Instrumentation Program and the Chemistry Research Instrumentation Program. Boise State University is acquiring a high-resolution accurate-mass ultra-high pressure liquid chromatography - mass spectrometry (LC-MS) system. The new LC-MS system will vastly improve research infrastructure at Boise State University to support investigators finding solutions to their research questions and increase their productivity.

This system will also provide training to graduate, undergraduate, and high school students in modern mass spectrometry techniques as future scientists. The new mass spectrometry system will benefit a broad scientific research community and have a significant impact on the research infrastructure and local economy in the State of Idaho. It will foster collaborative investigations with 12 other colleges, universities and research foundations in the State of Idaho, as well as with local industrial partners.

The acquisition of the high-resolution LC-MS system will enable new capabilities in proteomics and metabolomics research at Boise State University in model and non-model organisms, discovery of novel proteins and metabolites from non-model plants, microbes, and animals, and monitor biomarkers of stress in cells, organisms, habitats, and social-ecological systems. The high-resolution, accurate-mass data will be used to address challenges for the comprehensive characterization of complex proteomes and metabolomes for a large number of current and future research projects at Boise State University.

These research projects include integrating genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics to predict plant tolerance in wild vertebrate herbivores, investigating impact of smoke on potato growth, storage and profitability, lipidomic and proteomic profiling of autophagosome membrane, understanding the role of MTA/SAH nucleosidase deficiency in bacteria and protozoan parasites, elucidating function of tyrosine sulfation in extracellular fibrillogenesis, and carbon capture from hot springs capnophiles microbial mats. Graduate students in Biology, Chemistry, Biomolecular Sciences, Ecology, Evolution & Behavioral Biology, and Material Science will benefit from the research enabled by the acquisition of the high-resolution LC-MS.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.