This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: A small sample of human tissue can hold a remarkable amount of information. Researchers can use it to search for molecular clues associated with cancer, investigate the chemical landscape of the brain or determine where a drug travels after it enters the body.
Mass spectrometry imaging, or MSI, helps answer those questions by mapping where different molecules are located within tissue. Despite MSI's sophisticated capabilities, finding the right conditions to get useful results can still require a considerable amount of trial and error. Georgia Tech professor Andrei Fedorov and Ph.D. student John Sentmanat are working to change that.
"Mass spectrometry imaging is probably the most powerful tool to enable new discoveries in cell biology and protein biochemistry. It helps provide a direct insight not only into how the body works but also into the underlying cause of disease," said Fedorov, associate chair for graduate studies and Rae S. and Frank H. Neely Chair in the George W.
Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. "But the techniques for using it were evolving in a very empirical manner guided by experience and intuition. It's like shooting arrows in the dark." In response to this barrier, the team has developed what Fedorov likens to a recipe, a framework designed to help researchers understand how different ingredients and conditions work together to produce the molecular information they want.
Published in Analytical Chemistry, the approach could make MSI more predictable and give scientists a better starting point for developing new ways to study the molecular workings of the human body. "This paper provides a very simple recipe that everyone can read and use. You don't need to be a chef, or in this case, be able to write complicated equations," Fedorov said.
"It even allows you to come up with a new recipe using our model as the base." Though the framework was designed to be accessible to researchers across the field, Fedorov and Sentmanat didn't set out to solve a problem for the scientific community—they were trying to solve one in their own lab. In 2020, Fedorov, who is also a faculty member in the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience began work on the development of a new imaging instrument that could change the study of tumor growth, disease progression and cell function.
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