Imaging mass spectrometry

In the life sciences, imaging methods such as microscopy play a central role. The technique of imaging mass spectrometry is a new and analytic method in this field that promises many benefits.

Imaging mass spectrometry promises to deliver important advances, for example in the identification of biomarkers in molecular pathology, in the characterisation and functional analysis of natural materials and signalling substances in plants and insects, or in the search for diagnostic and prognostic marker molecules in the personalised medicine of the future.

It is of particular interest to life sciencists because the method allows the direct, spatially resolved measurement of a variety of analytically relevant substances in a tissue sample, and so achieves a spatial resolution in the micron range. In contrast to the classical methods for visualising proteins in tissue, imaging mass spectrometry also requires no prior knowledge of the target protein. Thus, the detection of thousands of components is possible at the same time.

In Germany, the Joint Committee of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) has decided, as part of the ‘Imaging Mass Spectrometry in the Life Sciences’ initiative, to equip nine universities with appropriate major instrumentation systems. A total of 5.8 million euros has been allocated to the Humboldt University in Berlin, the Technical University of Munich, the Aachen University of Technology and the universities of Bielefeld, Giessen, Jena, Kiel, Cologne and Münster. The nine universities will receive mass spectrometers of the highest standard, in order to maintain Germany’s scientific leadership in this area, and to develop it further.