3 minute read
Mass spectrometry is one of the most powerful techniques for high-sensitivity chemical analysis and is used worldwide in healthcare, academia, and industry. When combined with a probe (either photon, ion or chemical) it enables imaging of surfaces and interfaces from the nanoscale to in vivo applications.
A decade ago, NPL saw the potential for mass spectrometry imaging to be transformative in the life sciences but there was a need for metrological rigour to bring confidence to measurement, advances were needed in performance to meet the demanding biological challenges and it was recognised that a cohort of highly skilled researchers would be required to meet the needs of industry and other research institutes.
To bring new ways of thinking and address national challenges, NPL launched the National Centre of Excellence in Mass Spectrometry Imaging (NiCE-MSI) in 2023. Over the last 10 years the Centre has grown from a handful of instruments to a world class centre with a multidisciplinary team of experts and over 15 state-of-the-art technologies, some of which have been innovated and developed at NPL including OrbiSIMS. Our centre supports a wide range of industries, academia and government with trustworthy and impartial measurement capabilities and expertise. We are leading international standardisation and traceability for these techniques and establishing best practice for repeatable and reproducible measurements.
Over the last decade the team has worked on a range of high-impact projects including building a ‘Google Earth’ of cancer, enabling immediate decision making in surgery, providing new insights into drug discovery and cell biology and supporting the development of improved antibiotics to beat resistant bacteria.
NICE-MSI has ambitious plans for the future (see NPL metrology research roadmaps) to drive next generation technology development that will be faster, more sensitive and more reproducible. In 10- or 20-years’ time, we hope these techniques will become routine practice in industry and across the NHS.
Ian Gilmore, Senior NPL Fellow, said: “As the UK’s National Metrology Institute, NPL was ideally placed to drive the development of NiCE-MSI over a decade ago. During that time, we have seen huge advancements in mass spectrometry techniques and the impact that our measurement capabilities have had across a wide range of industries, academia and government.”
Josephine Bunch, NPL Fellow, said: “Over the last 10 years we have been on a journey to develop a Centre of Excellence that encompasses cutting-edge technology and techniques and has brought together exceptional scientists from across the globe. This combination has enabled us to open up new areas of research such as understanding the make-up of cancer tumours or locate and quantify nuclear materials.”
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01 Nov 2023