Nick gave the Keynote Presentation in the Mutimodal Session of the 42nd BMSS Conference in Manchester in September. The talk was titled ‘Multimodal Mass Spectrometry and Optical Imaging of a Neuroinflammation Model‘ and showcased our collaboration with the Medicines Discovery Catapult and colleagues in the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health.
Nick gave an Invited Talk at the UKSAF meeting at the Henry Royce Institute hub, entitiled ‘Advances in ToF-SIMS using massive gas cluster ion beams‘.
We have been awarded funding from the Wellcome Institutional Strategic Support Fund for a pilot-project entitled ‘A framework for multi-omic hyperspectral image fusion’. This work will be carried out with colleagues from across the Faculties of Engineering and Physical Science and Biology, Medicine & Health together with the CRUK-Manchester Institute Computational Biology Support Team.
Akhila has published a review article in the Journal Plants:
| Mass Spectrometry Imaging for Spatial Chemical Profiling of Vegetative Parts of Plants Akhila Ajith, Phillip J. Milnes, Giles N. Johnson and Nicholas P. Lockyer Plants 11 (2022) 1234 |
Our recent work on cluster ion beam developments has been published in the Special Issue in honour of Martin Seah.
Sensitivity enhancement using chemically reactive gas cluster ion beams in secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS)
Matija Lagator, Irma Berrueta Razo, Thomas Royle, and Nicholas P. Lockyer
Surf. Interface Anal. 54 (2022) 349-355
Akhila’s PhD project will explore the novel application of mass spectrometry imaging technologies to measure improved uptake, distribution and metabolism of crop protection products in leaves and plants, addressing global challenges in food security. The project is co-funded with Syngenta and the BBSRC.
The world urgently needs better battery technology to rapidly move towards a low‐carbon society. However, commercially‐available batteries currently do not store enough energy, have limited working lifetimes, and are too expensive to make large‐scale electrification viable. To design improved batteries, a better understand of chemical processes inside a battery during charging and discharging is needed. This requires measuring the flow of ions and electrons across multiple interfaces, buried within the battery. Abdulrhman’s PhD project will develop methodologies to study these interfaces using secondary ion mass spectrometry and X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The project is co-supervised by Dr Alex Walton.
Congratulations to Danielle on the award of her PhD! Her project ‘Diagnosing the Masses’ explored differentiation and drug interactions of prostate cancer cells and tissue using SIMS, DESI and Laser-REIMS mass spectrometry imaging. Thanks to Dr Adam McMahon from the Wolfson Molecular Imaging Centre and Dr Emrys Jones from Waters Corp. for their co-supervision.
Applications are invited for a cross-faculty BBSRC DTP studentship entitled: Imaging inflammatory changes in tissues by mass spectrometry
This project will focus on the use of mass spectrometry imaging of biological tissues to explore and further develop their capabilities in the context of inflammation research. Inflammation is central to progression and outcome of a wide range of important conditions including stroke, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease.
Details of the project, application process and eligibility requirements can be found here. Eligible applicants should contact the primary supervisor Adam.McMahon@manchester.ac.uk before making a formal application (deadline 22 Jan 2021)
We are looking for PhD students to join the group and work in the following areas:
If you are seeking support for funding applications or have funding already secured please contact Nick.Lockyer@manchester.ac.uk.
We have started a collaboration with the Biological Mass Spectrometry theme of the Rosalind Franklin Institute, led by Profs. Josephine Bunch and Zoltan Takats. This aims to develop new capabilities for mass specrometry imaging using SIMS and laser post-ionisation. We welcome back Dr Sadia Sheraz to the group to lead the experiments at the Photon Science Institute.
The Rosalind Franklin Institute is a new national institute, funded by the UK government through UK Research and Innovation, dedicated to bringing about transformative changes in life science through interdisciplinary research and technology development.
EPSRC have funded a new MALDI imaging instrument through their strategic equipment call. The grant, worth £810 k will allow investment in the latest MALDI-ToF technology, enabling us to establish a facility serving internal and external users. The instrument complements the University’s world-leading mass spctrometry imaging capabilities including ToF-SIMS, Nano-SIMS, DESI-MS and LAESI-MS. The Facility will be managed through the Michael Barber Centre for Collaborative Mass Spectrometry.
Congratulations to Samar on the award of her PhD. Her thesis entitled ‘Detection and localisation of drug molecules in biological samples using secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS)’ was co-supervised by Dr Katie Moore and employed both ToF-SIMS and NanoSIMS.
Christmas came early this week at SARC with the delivery of our new J105 Instrument. Thanks to the hard work of the guys from Ionoptika Ltd it was assembled and at vacuum in 48h.
At the SIMS 22 International Conference in Kyoto in Oct 2019, Nick was elected by delegates onto the International Committee. The next conference, SIMS 23 will be held in Minneapolis, USA in 2021.
