University of North Carolina at Pembroke, Department of Chemistry and Physics

Q: WHAT IS THE FOCUS OF YOUR LAB’S RESEARCH?

A: Our exclusively undergraduate program in chemistry is fortunate to have a nice inventory of analytical instrumentation for use in various lab courses and student/faculty research. As the department’s analytical chemist, I coordinate the use of these instruments and the development of laboratory projects for use in our curricular labs. I also direct a group of undergraduate student assistants in research aimed at developing new devices and methodologies for microscale spectroelectrochemical measurements.

Q: WHAT WAS YOUR PREVIOUS WORK FLOW OR CHALLENGES?

A: Our department’s mass spectrometry instrumentation (two GCMS systems and an ambient pressure gas analyzer) was limited to EI ionization of gaseous and volatile liquid samples until we purchased the Advion CMS.

Q: WHY DID YOU INCORPORATE THE EXPRESSION CMS INTO YOUR LABORATORY?

A: Our faculty agreed the need existed to incorporate additional MS capabilities to our instrumentation holdings for both our undergraduate lab curriculum and several of our faculty members’ research efforts. The Advion CMS was an ideal choice with regard to cost, portability and flexibility. In particular, the ASAP probe available for APCI mode was an attractive feature supporting our development of lab projects with forensic and pharmaceutical emphasis.

Q: WHO WOULD YOU RECOMMEND TO PURCHASE THE EXPRESSION CMS?

A: I think the Advion system is well suited for a variety of undergraduate curricular and research lab applications.

Q: DO YOU HAVE ANY PUBLICATIONS OR PRESENTATIONS USING THE EXPRESSION CMS?

A: None to report yet, but I’m optimistic – at present, a student in my instrumental analysis course is satisfying her independent project requirement by working with the ASAP probe to develop a simple internal standard approach to permit quantitation of components in pharmaceutical preparations.