Instrumental experience for KWC undergraduates: a GC-MS will provide biology and chemistry students with essential hands-on experience valued by graduate programs and stem employers

The National Institute of General Medical Sciences awarded Kentucky Wesleyan College $137,227 on September 1, 2026, under the Biomedical Research and Research Training program (CFDA 93.859) to acquire a gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer (GC-MS) instrument for undergraduate instruction and research.

Biology and chemistry undergraduates at Kentucky Wesleyan College will gain hands-on experience with the GC-MS, a skill sought by graduate programs in chemistry, biochemistry, and biomedical sciences and by employers in the chemical, pharmaceutical, and biomedical research industries. The instrument will support the Tiny Earth Project, in which biology students isolate soil bacteria, extract potentially novel antibiotic compounds, and use GC-MS to identify those compounds. Students at nearby primarily undergraduate institutions without onsite GC-MS access will also gain access to the instrument through partnerships with Kentucky Wesleyan College. Kentucky Wesleyan College has not had a functioning GC-MS since 2017; employer surveys indicate demand for applicants with hands-on GC-MS experience.

Performance takes place in Owensboro, Kentucky through August 31, 2027.

Abstract

Obtaining a gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer (GC-MS) will provide biology and chemistry undergraduate students at kentucky wesleyan college with direct, hands-on experience with this instrument, a skill highly sought by chemistry, biochemistry, and biomedical graduate programs as well as employers in the chemical, pharmaceutical, and biomedical research industries. Students at nearby primarily undergraduate institutions that do not have GC-MS onsite will gain access to the instrument through partnerships with kentucky wesleyan college. This will develop students who are better prepared for careers in biomedical and related research fields and more qualified for acceptance to graduate programs in the physical and life sciences and professional schools including medical schools. Kentucky wesleyan college has not had a working GC-MS since 2017. Recent graduates have been accepted into graduate and professional schools or found employment in fields related to their degrees. However, employer surveys show a desire for highly trained and experienced applicants to use GC-MS in their industries. While our students have fundamental academic knowledge of this instrument through our lecture courses and learn to assess data from the instrument using provided data sets, without access to the instrument, they cannot gain this desirable experience. The requested GC-MS instrument will support undergraduate biomedical research by biology students working with the tiny earth project which searches for antibiotics produced by soil bacteria. Students isolate soil bacteria that produce a response to safe relatives of antibiotic- resistant organisms and then extract potentially new antibiotic compounds. GC-MS would allow students to identify the compounds in their extracts and search the biomedical research literature to determine if the compounds have been previously discovered. Undergraduate research students in chemistry are working to prepare tyrosol as a precursor for the synthesis of salidroside, a compound responsible for the possible healing properties of the rhodiola plant used in traditional indigenous medicine. GC-MS would readily discriminate between tyrosol and a related compound that may be produced as a biproduct. Students in an advanced chemistry laboratory course will learn to assess the data produced by the instrument by analyzing mixtures of known and unknown compounds; by determining the molar mass and structure of dipeptides that they prepare; and by examining the compounds extracted from medicinal plants native to western kentucky.