School of Pharmacy Mass Spectrometry Center

The University’s of Washington Mass Spectrometry Center (SOPMS), operated under the auspices of the School of Pharmacy, Department of Medicinal Chemistry, is a self-sustaining instrument laboratory providing a wide variety of mass spectral services to both the academic and the research community at large on a regulated recharge basis. The Center serves as a resource providing both analytical and instructional expertise in mass spectral techniques and instrumentation. The primary goal of the Center is to provide investigators with hands-on training in the use of and ready access to state-of-the-art instrumentation required in the sensitive and specific detection, identification, and quantification of materials encountered in biomedical and biopharmaceutical research. A modern, professionally managed facility, the Center, in addition to providing investigators with access to routine submitted sample analysis and contracted method-development services, offers researchers many distinct advantages. Three skilled staff members are available to train users in the theoretical and practical aspects of mass spectrometry and assist investigators in method development, assay validation, and data interpretation. Center personnel also collaborate with investigators to solve unique research problems requiring mass spectrometry and ancillary isolation and separation techniques. Typical problems encountered by the Center are the identification and structural elucidation of natural and synthetic products, including peptides from protein hydrolysates and drug peptide covalent adducts, as well as the detection and quantification of drugs and their biotransformation products in metabolism and drug interaction studies. We are fortunate to have this state-of-the-art analytical facility within our school. In fact, instruments and services by this facility are highly sought after by not only university researchers but researchers in the biotechnology corridor of Seattle. Instruments available to researchers through the Center include ten high-performance mass spectrometers with an aggregate value much greater than $2,000,000, which provides a variety of bioanalytical capabilities that would normally be unaffordable by individual investigators. These would include: the qualitative and quantitative gas chromatographic-mass spectrometric (GC-MS) analysis of volatile compounds, liquid chromatographic-mass spectrometric (LC/MS) analysis of polar, thermally labile, and higher molecular weight materials, which are intractable by GC/MS and classical ionization techniques, tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) structure elucidation and quantification of materials from complex biological matrices, accurate mass measurement high-resolution mass spectral (HRMS) analysis, enabling the empirical formula determination of materials, and LC/MS analysis and peptide sequencing of protein digests.

• Self-service access to instruments/equipment (with appropriate training)
• Training (instruments, software and/or methods)