Professor Graham Cooks, Purdue University

“Non-Canonical Mass Spectrometry: Ions in Air for Synthesis, Diagnostics and Analysis”

About the Seminar:

This presentation is based on the idea that the study of ions is a discipline in its own right of which mass spectrometry as currently practiced forms only a small part. There are three components to the talk to illustrate this thesis.  First, ions can be used in perform accelerated solution-phase reactions on the mg scale, collect the products, and characterize them in the usual way, e.g. by NMR.    Second, charged droplets can be used to generate diagnostic profiles of lipids and metabolites in disease diagnosis, including surgical margins.  Third, most if not all the essential processes in mass spectrometry can be performed without using vacuum.

About the Speaker:

Professor R. Graham Cooks received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Natal in South Africa and PhDs from both the University of Natal and Cambridge. He started at Kansas State University, then moved to Purdue University where he was both a professor in the Chemistry Department and the Director of the Mass Spectrometry Center. He is currently the Henry Bohn Hass Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Purdue. He has contributed principles and novel instrumentation to the subject of tandem mass spectrometry and helped initiate desorption ionization methods. Since 2004, Prof Cooks has concentrated on new ambient ionization methods for mass spectrometry, including desorption electrospray ionization (DESI) and paper spray (PS). These efforts have involved elucidation of fundamental physical and chemical phenomena, new instrumentation and practically useful applications. In parallel his group has steadily improved miniature mass spectrometers and applied ambient ionization to on-line and point-of-care monitoring.

The 2015-2016 Student Hosted Colloquium is sponsored by Dow.