A series of rapid and cost effective analytical methods will be developed to enable routine screening of feedstock material and products.  These techniques include sampling with lasers so that the need for digestion with highly corrisive acids is effectively eliminated.  These techniques will have less waste and use less hazardous materials than traditional methods and this will reduce the environmental impact of critical analytical testing.   Developing these technologies will ensure that Natural Factors continues to be an industrial leader in quality assurance and control.  The new techno

The proposed research will work to characterize plasmas of the type that form where the charging roll contacts the photoreceptor in a typical xerographic printer.  Laboratory experiments will form discharges under ambient atmospheric conditions and at the high-vacuum exit of a dielectric-barrier-discharge pulsed molecular beam.  Spectroscopic measurements will record fluorescence emission signatures of plasmas under these conditions, and time-of-flight mass spectrometry will monitor the presence of reactive intermediates.  

The Kothe research group studies the structure and function of small ribonucleoproteins which are involved in ribosome biogenesis, in particular in modification of ribosomal RNA, with the aim of better understanding how the cell assembles large RNAprotein complexes such as the ribosome.

Determining the properties of materials has always been one of the primary goals of research in materials science. Computational models for materials’ property determination are hindered by their high computational cost; it can take weeks (even years) to develop and evaluate a computational model for a single property of a single material.

We have developed a technology platform that allows us to obtain quantitative information regarding biomarkers much faster than currently possible, without the need to use expensive antibodies for detection. Our platform allows for simultaneous detection of many biomarkers at once. This reduces the time and the cost associated with biodiagnosis, and will directly contribute to public health by providing a reliable platform for early detection of many diseases.

Quantitative steroid hormone measurements are a mainstay in the field of clinical endocrinology, due to their effects in myriad processes from maturation to hormone-sensitive cancers. Conventional steroid hormone testing protocols require a venopunture blood draw (~5 mL) followed by a time consuming immunoassay (~2 hr) each time a single  hormone is tested. In response to this problem (and opportunity) the Wheeler Lab developed a method relying on digital microfluidics coupled with liquid chromatography - tandem mass spectrometry detection (LC-MS/MS).