Lingjun Li, professor in the Pharmaceutical Sciences Division and Department of Chemistry, is successful in competitive renewal of her NSF grant application entitled “Combining Microseparations and Ion Mobility Mass Spectrometry to Probe Peptidergic Signaling in Environmental Stress.”

This three-year award by the Chemical Measurement and Imaging Program in the Division of Chemistry will support Dr. Li’s effort on the development of multi-faceted analytical methodologies, largely based on ion mobility mass spectrometry (IM-MS) and microseparation techniques for large-scale functional discovery, quantitation and structural elucidation of neuropeptides in a crustacean model system. Peptides play a key role in various physiological processes and the selected crab model is an ideal platform on which to develop novel mass spectral techniques and apply these techniques to gain biologically relevant information. The project findings are expected to expand our knowledge base in neuropeptide family organization and functional consequences of neuropeptide multiplicity in these important model organisms, with a focus on response to environmental stress.

During the course of conducting this project, a diverse group of students will be trained in advanced mass spectrometry, analytical separation methodologies and neuroscience. A partnership with the Madison Metropolitan School District program to host and mentor high school students for summer research internships will be continued and a web-based peptidome database system will be constructed.