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Research Highlights

Listed here are recent research highlights. A more detailed list and other information about activities at EMSL may be found in the EMSL Bi-Monthly Reports.

Covalent Immobilization of Peptides on Self-Assembled Monolayer Surfaces

Figure 1. TOF-SIMS spectra of unmodified NHS-SAM

The high selectivity inherent in mass spectrometry and ion beam chemistry may provide unprecedented control for preparation of novel substrates for biorecognition studies and biomaterials for stimulated protein and cell adhesion.

Morphology and Oxide-Shell Structure of Iron Nanoparticles Grown by Sputter-Gas-Aggregation

Figure 1. High-resolution transmission electron microscope image of the core-shell structured iron nanoparticle.

Nanometer-sized iron particles have important applications to a variety of technologies related to medical imaging, drug delivery, information storage, cancer treatment, and environmental remediation. Although the smallest nanoparticles are usually round, many useful nanosized particles are large enough to show crystallographic structures with crystal facets. Surface-related chemical and magnetic properties of nanoparticles can be strongly influenced by the nature of the specific surfaces exposed and, for reactive metals such as iron, the oxides that form on the surfaces. Particles produced by a low-temperature, gas-aggregation process have primarily non-equilibrium surface facets exposed. These surfaces contrast with the equilibrium shapes of particles produced or processed at higher temperatures. The ability to control particle morphology will enable tailoring of the properties of iron nanoparticles.

Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Studies of Radiation Damage to DNA

When DNA is exposed to radiation, the DNA is damaged and free radical sites are formed in the process. Cells usually do a good job of repairing this damage, but if there are multiple free radical sites in near proximity, the DNA may be permanently damaged, leading to health problems such as cancer. The goal of this work is to determine how close together the free radicals need to be to interfere with normal DNA repair. This new information will lead to a better understanding of the repair mechanism.

VIPER: An Advanced Software Package to Support High-Throughput LC-MS Peptide Identification

Figure 1. The large graphic shows a plot of monoisotopic masses vs. scan number (time), color-coded by charge state. The upper left inset is a total ion chromatogram of the entire dataset, while the lower right inset shows 68 LC-MS features resolved in both the mass and time dimensions.

VIPER (Visual Inspection of Peak/Elution Relationships) combines a host of useful functions and capabilities to facilitate and standardize analysis and processing of data generated in liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS)-based, high-throughput proteomics analyses. The VIPER software was recently described in the journal Bioinformatics and publicly released at Proteomics Research Resource for Integrative Biology's Software webpage.

This research was conducted as part of the Biogeochemistry Grand Challenge and describes how the bacterial protein OmcA could be used in the design of biofuel cells.

Transparent Thin-Film Transistor Using Self-Assembled Nanocrystals

Figure 1.Transparent nanocrystals.

As one of the next-generation opto-electronics, transparent circuits have broad potential applications ranging from invisible military detecting systems, clear toys and cards, smart buildings, and interactive media to canopy window displays. In backlit display devices, transparent active-matrix circuits can increase the life of batteries used to power the devices.

Use of Quantum-Chemical Computations to Investigate the Sulfur-Poisoning Mechanism in Solid-State Oxide Fuel Cells

Figure 1. The new predicted phase diagram for the S-Ni system in H2S/H2 fuel mixtures.

Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) can generate power using a wide variety of fuels including those from fossil, biomass, and other renewable sources. They hold great promise as a future power source, but the catalysts needed for the process are easily poisoned by small amounts of sulfur in readily available fuels. Achieving an understanding of the sulfur-poisoning mechanism of nickel-based SOFCs is essential to rational design of sulfur tolerant SOFCs. Computer calculations combined with experimental results have made great progress toward this goal.