Mass Spectrometry Technology has been one of the Key Technology Division’s Focuses in Genomics Research Center of Academia Sinica.
The team led by Dr. Winston Chen has developed a unique design of its kind, which makes a “one for all” mass spectrometry technology possible to detect masses from the size of an atom to batches of cancer cells in the matter of hours.
The basis of this development is from Chen’s innovative CLIAD-MS (Charge Monitoring Laser Induced Acoustic Desorption Mass Spectrometry) method developed back in 1997. According to Chen, the idea of this design came from the observation of “ultrasonic washing machines”.
By penetrating the laser beam on a silicon wafer from the opposite side of the targeted cells, it pushes the cells onto a vacuum chamber by acoustic wave. The method requires no additional chemicals and thus preserves the target particle’s wholesome. In fact, the same team has been successfully developed the first cell weighing spectrometer in 2005,
On the “Early View” website page, “Angewandte Chemi” has once again published its newest invention that makes another major hop which can now weigh multiple cells in a timeframe that’s a million times faster. (http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/anie.200700309)
The team takes an innovative approach that uses the low radio frequency voltage to measure multiple microparticles and cells mass to charge ratio (m/z). And, by a “corona-discharge method”, they increased the number of charges (z) on a microparticle ten times to differentiate it from the charges of electronic elements from the equipment self. Then, with a charge detector, they can measure multiple particles at a given short time, and the whole process of establishing a distribution for a certain type of cell or particle becomes achievable in terms of commercialization.
Dr. Chen who has quite a history in exploiting MS technology, is currently the acting director of GRC. He is excited not only due to the extended range and speed of the measurement to the Mass Spectrometry, also, this is the first observation ever published that a single biological cell can carry up to ten thousand charges.
This research is a collaborated effort from the Genomics Research Center, Institute of Atomic and Molecular Sciences, and Institute of Physics. According to Chen, this technology is not limited to bioparticle measurement only, it can also be applied to the measurement of industrial products such as polystyrene, and be used to identify hazardous pollutant such as exhaust fume from motor vehicles.
