Ion Trap Mass Spectrometry Beyond m/z

ABSTRACT:

This seminar will introduce me and how I think about chemistry. Naturally, the goal of any chemist is to do cool chemistry that matters, but the challenge is how to get there. This will be the seminar’s thematic center. Two ideas guide my approach: an appreciation for chemistry in a broad sense and knowledge about the technical details of instrumental analysis. As an illustration, I will highlight a few key findings from the literature and merge this narrative with my own work. On the technical side, my key argument is that quadrupole ion traps offer under-exploited functions perfect for the AI-powered era. I will discuss my work with serine octamer chiral molecular clusters and MS/MS fragmentation, which has broad relevance in origins of life chemistry/homochirality and chemical analysis. An important motivator for me is mentorship and I will take time to explain my work with undergraduate and visiting scholars. To close, I will zoom back out and discuss chemistry’s unmet needs and explain how my work fits in. Since AI has all the “settled science” at its fingertips, doing novel experiments has never been more advantageous and ion traps offer several avenues for new experiment types.