Multi-modal Mass Spectrometric Imaging for Understanding the Biochemical Effects of Nanomaterials

With support from the Chemical Measurement and Imaging Program in the Division of Chemistry, Professor Richard Vachet, Professor Vincent Rotello, and their groups at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst are developing new methods to measure nanomaterials in biological samples. Nanomaterials are important in a growing number of technologies, ranging from consumer goods and industrial applications to biomedicine.

To properly understand the consequences of such nanomaterials in each application, new measurement methods are needed that can report on their distributions and biochemical effects. Professors Vachet and Rotello are developing new imaging tools that can simultaneously provide both sets of information for nanomaterials in tissues. The proposed imaging methods rely on sophisticated laser-based mass spectrometry that can also provide fundamental information about the interactions of light with nanomaterials.

The new methods developed in this grant are also leading to new ways to computationally combine data obtained from these new imaging methods and more traditional microscopy methods, thereby deepening the insight that can be extracted from these imaging methods. A diverse group of undergraduate and graduate students will be involved in the project, and these students will obtain training in cutting-edge mass spectrometry and nanotechnology, two areas of broad importance.

The Vachet/Rotello group is developing new imaging approaches that combine laser ablation inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP MS) and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization MS (MALDI MS) to simultaneously track nanomaterials and biomolecules (e.g. metabolites, lipids) in tissues. They are exploring new multi-modal image segmentation approaches to more easily identify sub-organ specific molecular markers.

They are also developing new computational methods to fuse images from LA-ICP-MS imaging, MALDI-MS imaging, and microscopy. Combining images from these modalities will improve spatial resolution and enhance the chemical information present in the images. They are also synthesizing new mass tags that can be conjugated to any nanomaterial to improve multi-modal imaging. New software that is developed in this project is made freely available to the research community.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.