Mass Spectrometry Laboratory

Mass spectrometry can provide critical evidence. Coupled with our experience and expertise, it could provide the crucial findings your project is looking for. Through consultancy services, or collaborative ventures, talk to us to find out how we can work with you, whatever your industry or sector.

The laboratory, and our Academic Lead Dr Nicolas Stewart, are based at the Huxley building on our Moulsecoomb campus.

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Our mass spectrometer is a high resolution instrument, capable of a resolution of 140,000@200 m/z FWHM with high accuracy (sub ppm mass accuracy).

It can be used for data dependant acquisition proteomics workflows and targeted analyses by parallel reaction monitoring (PRM), as well as for small molecule (> 50 Da) analysis and lipidomics applications.

Typical applications are protein identification from trypsin digests, identification of post-translational modifications of proteins and protein quantitation.

Other applications can include small molecule analysis, drug/drug metabolite assays and lipid analysis.

Thermo Scientific™ Q Exactive™ hybrid Quadrupole-Orbitrap mass spectrometer with Dionex UltiMate™ 3000 RSLCnanoThermo Scientific™ Q Exactive™ hybrid Quadrupole-Orbitrap mass spectrometer with Dionex UltiMate™ 3000 RSLCnano.
nano-Electrospray Ionisation (Nanospray Flex™ ion source)nano-Electrospray Ionisation (Nanospray Flex™ ion source)

Key features

  • fast scanning at 12 Hz
  • rapid polarity switching
  • collision induced dissociation (HCD) for structural information
  • more than four orders of magnitude intrascan dynamic range
  • femtogram-level sensitivity, enabling the detection of trace-level and high-abundance compounds in the same scan

Base peak chromatogram of a trypsin digest of a protein extract from a cell lysate

Base peak chromatogram of a trypsin digest of a protein extract from a cell lysate

Heated Electrospray Ionisation (Ion Max API housing with HESI-II source)Heated Electrospray Ionisation (Ion Max API housing with HESI-II source)

Established in June 2018, through funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and the University of Brighton, the mass spectrometer laboratory also supports research and teaching within the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences, the Centre for Stress and Age-Related Disease and the Centre for Regenerative Medicine and Devices.