Home

Ion mobility (IM) is a suite of technologies that leverages fundamental ion-neutral interactions, is complementary to mass spectrometry (MS), and shares the core strengths of sensitivity, selectivity, and speed. Seattle is home to a vibrant IM-MS community. The vision of Mobility Enabled Science in Seattle (MESS) is to leverage the expertise and resources of this community to advance the contributions of IM to the environmental, health, and physical sciences.

See Events for information on upcoming events. To learn more about our group or join our mailing list, please contact us at mess@uw.edu.

Events

Beyond Mass Measurement: Using Mass Spectrometry to Probe Biomolecular Structure and Stability in the Gas Phase

  • Assistant Professor Varun Gadkari: Chemistry, University of Minnesota
  • Journal club discussion of https://chemrxiv.org/engage/chemrxiv/article-details/67907d1e6dde43c908aec0c0. Wednesday, Mar 5, 2025, 9:30 – 10:30 am in CHL 068B
  • Seminar, followed by open discussion: Monday, Mar 10, 2025, 3:30 – 4:30 p.m. in BAG 261
  • Rapid advancements in structural biology have enabled remarkable elucidation of three-dimensional biomolecular structures, providing valuable insights into structure-function relationships. However, current structure determination techniques impose stringent sample purity requirements, limiting characterization to “well-behaved” biomolecules that exhibit chemical and structural homogeneity. As a result, several essential biomolecular classes remain inaccessible due to their inherent heterogeneity. To bridge this gap, there is a critical need for bioanalytical tools capable of analyzing complex and intractable biomolecules while elucidating their structural properties. This seminar will highlight the Gadkari Research Group’s efforts to develop mass spectrometry-based methods for characterizing biomolecules that have long posed analytical challenges and remain elusive to conventional structural biology approaches. Building on expertise in native mass spectrometry, the group is advancing gas-phase unfolding methods and integrating them with machine learning models to detect stress-induced structural changes in biotherapeutic antibodies. Additionally, they are developing Orbitrap-based charge detection mass spectrometry to characterize biotherapeutic nucleic acids in the megadalton mass range. Through the development of innovative mass spectrometry techniques, the group’s research seeks to expand the reach of structural biology, enabling the characterization of biomolecules previously deemed intractable.  Following the seminar, there will be an open discussion on various ion mobility topics

Save the date!

Past Events

MESS labs also participate in:

News