Federal Grant Award Summary

Washington State University's Clowers Research Group received a $406,037 Project Grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences under the Biomedical Research and Research Training program (CFDA 93.859) awarded on April 5, 2026, with completion expected by February 28, 2031. The award supports research and development of advanced ion manipulation and analytical chemistry technologies designed to detect and characterize isomeric and conformational features of biomolecules that conventional liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry methods typically fail to identify. The primary deliverable is the advancement of Structures for Lossless Ion Manipulations (SLIM) technology integrated with ion mobility spectrometry and mass spectrometry techniques, enabling high-resolution separation and quantification of isomeric compounds in complex biological systems relevant to metabolism, disease mechanisms, and drug efficacy assessment.

The research delivers complementary analytical methodologies including phased ion mobility spectrometry to align SLIM separations with standard chromatography timescales, gas-phase hydrogen-deuterium exchange labeling to map solvent-accessible molecular regions, ozone-induced dissociation for chemically selective modifications, and tandem collision-induced unfolding coupled with SLIM technology to isolate and characterize intermediate protein structures. These integrated approaches are designed to provide enhanced characterization of isomeric and conformational states, quantify molecular stability, and refine structural models of biomolecules for diverse omics applications in biomedical research.