Having a five-year, $2.5 million National Science Foundation grant and access to some of the world’s finest equipment is a good place to be. Just ask Wayne State University Professor Mary Rodgers, leader of a university consortium for advanced biological structure and imaging applications.
Rodgers’ team has just received the multi-million award along with access to one of only two research set-ups in the world capable of the specific type of molecular analysis her team will perform in conjunction with a group of Dutch scientists.
The work Rodgers’ team will perform with the grant centers on determining the difference between molecules with the same mass.
To the layman, differences on the molecular level may seem, well, infinitesimal. But to high-tech researchers, the ways molecules differ can offer clues to the nature of disease.
The technique Rodgers’ team uses involves the use of mass spectrometry coupled with a free electron laser. Such pairings exist in only two locations worldwide – in France and the Netherlands.
"Some of the applications of what we’re trying to do are related to biological origins," she says. "We can compare where we have taken a biopsy and can look for specific chemical signatures. How do cells change as function of being healthy or non-healthy? This can have a big impact in the area of cancer research."
At least 12 graduate students and six undergrad students will be involved in the project, Rodgers says.
The grant application process was highly competitive, Rodgers says, with an initial 500 applicants winnowed down to just 17.
"Being in the top seventeen’s a good place to be," she says.
Source: Mary Rodgers, Wayne State University
Writer: Nancy Kaffer
Enjoy this story?
Sign up for free solutions-based reporting in your inbox each week.