The University of Notre Dame DU Lac's Notre Dame Research Division has been awarded a $247,767 Project Grant by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) under the Biomedical Research and Research Training program (CFDA 93.859). The grant, titled "Improving the Sensitivity and Selectivity of Laser Desorption Ionization using N-Heterocyclic Carbene Mass Ionization Tags", aims to develop a proof-of-concept for using N-heterocyclic carbene-decorated gold nanoparticles to improve the ionization efficiency and detection of low-abundance peptides and post-translationally modified proteins in mass spectrometry applications. The project, which runs from Sep 1, 2024 to Aug 31, 2026, seeks to provide at least two orders of magnitude improvement in sensitivity over existing methods, enabling better characterization of the "dark proteome" with broader implications for disease biomarker identification and tissue/single-cell imaging.
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