The  Mass  Spectrometry  and Chromatography  Support  Facility

Objective

To use our state of the art equipment and highly experienced staff to perform challenging analytical works with the best accuracy available, and to explore and understand processes at biomolecular level.

Supporting Research and Development

 Experienced technical staff and state-of-the-art equipment make the mass spectrometry support facility at the Center for Advanced Food Technology (CAFT) a valuable resource for tackling some of the most complex and intriguing problems facing the industry today. Located at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, the $2.5 million facility is designed for university students, and is available to support researchers from the food, chemical, and pharmaceutical industries. The facility focuses on special research-oriented problems, and does not compete with work that can be accomplished at commercial locations.

The facility's equipment and technical expertise can be used, for instance, to help a company research the nature and quantity of foreign compounds in samples that may be causing off-flavors, discoloration, or other irregularities.

For each application, the technical staff selects the appropriate instrument and technique to break down a given sample, and then analyzes the resulting data. Users receive detailed written reports describing both the prcedure and the outcome.

An Established Facility

Since 1985, CAFT's Mass Spectrometry Support Facility has tackled beyond- routine analysis for the federal Food and Drug Administration, the United States Department of Agriculture, the New Jersey Department of Consumer Affairs, and more than 150 companies from New Jersey and across the nation.

The Equipment

CAFT's Instrumentation Facility is well equipped with the most sophisticated research grade instruments. For maximum productivity and performance we have adopted a policy of dedicating instruments to specific analytical tasks. Each instrument is set up and optimized for particular operational modes eliminating the need for time consuming changeovers. Tasks are carried out on the instrument using the technique which is most suitable. The following is a description of the instruments and techniques:

Finnigan MAT 8230 High Resolution Gas Chromatograph-Mass Spectrometer equipped with a Varian 3400 gas chromatograph. This instrument has electron and chemical ionization capabilities with both positive and negative chemical ionization modes. The instrument is equipped with a thermal desorption apparatus designed by Dr. Thomas Hartman of our facility, which allows for the determination of volatile as well as semi-volatile components in foods. In addition, the 8230 is a high resolution instrument capable of measuring masses to three or four decimal places, allowing determination of elemental composition as well as for separation of components with the same nominal mass, but differing elemental composition. This is a high performance, high resolution instrument, having higher sensitivity and higher dynamic range than quadrupole mass spectrometers. Instrument control and data collection uses a Digital Equipment Corporation PDP minicomputer, and data is transfered to desktop PCs over our network by using FTP followed by conversion to PC data files  using Mass Transit® software. This is the workhorse of our facility often operating 10-14 hours per day requiring little service.

Finnigan MAT95/9000 High Resolution Gas Chromatograph-Mass Spectrometer equipped with a Hewlett Packard gas chromatograph.  This instrument was recently purchased to upgrade our older MAT8230 GC-MS and will be installed by summer of 2003. This instrument also has electron ionization and chemical ionization capabilities and is a magnetic research grade high resolution instrument with the highest sensitivity.  It is also capable of obtaining elemental composition data for unknown species.

Micromass Platform High Performance Liquid Chromatograph (HPLC)-Mass Spectrometer. The mass spectrometer is equipped with an Atmospheric Pressure Chemical Ionization (APCI) ion source as well as with an Electrospray Ionization (ESI) ion source.  Both positive and negative modes can be obtained on the instrument.  Collisionally induced mass spectra can be obtained using argon as a collision gas to observe fragmentation in the second mass analyzer.  The unit is interfaced to a Varian 9012 terniary HPLC pump and the effluent routed through a Varian 9050 variable wavelength detector. This unit also has a Varian autosampler for automatic sample injection. It is controlled by a Micromass data system which utilizes a DEC Pc XL 560 Computer

Micromass Quattro HPLC-MS-MS equipment with a Shimadzu gradient HPLC. This triple quadrupole mass spectrometer is equipped with APCI (Chemical Ionization) and Electrospray Ionization (ESI). It is one of the most sensitive instruments for low level quantitation of organics in complex matrices. We intend to study bioavaliability and metabolism of marker compounds from foods with this instrument. An autosampler allows for analyzing many samples under computer control. This instrument is interfaced to a Shimadzu gradient HPLC including a 10A system controller, two LC-10AD pumps, A SPD-10A UV detector and a 10A autosampler. It is computer controlled by the LC/MS operating system. This is a  new piece of equipment.

Ciphergen Protein-Chip® Instrument equipped with special protein array chips for the enhancement or concentration of peptides and proteins. This chip technology is directly interfaced to a Surface Enhanced Laser Desorption Ionization (SELDI) mass spectrometer capable of determining molecular weights of proteins up to and slightly greater than 100,000 Daltons.  Specialized chip surfaces can bind proteins by utilizing antibody / antigen interactions, or separation can be achieved utilizing normal phase or reversed phase chips. A large variety of chips are available for multi-purpose chromatography prior to introduction to the mass spectrometer and bombardment with energy from a nitrogen laser.  Laser Desorption Ionization can be used for previously isolated samples of interest.

GC units include: Six off-line Varian 3400 gas chromatographs with various detectors including FID, ECD and  FPD.   

HPLC Units: 6 or more available, which include: ESA (Shimadzu) Coularray HPLC with diode array detection as well as ECD or electrochemical detection (6 cell). Two Shimadzu 10A gradient HPLC pumps with controller are interfaced to a PC for system control using ESA software.

Expert Management

Dr. Thomas G. Hartman, an instrumentation specialist with expertise in mass spectrometry and other analytical techniques, is responsible for the management of the facility. The support facility is administered by Dr. Robert Rosen, a nationally recognized expert in mass spectrometry with special skills in separation science and identification techniques.