Overview of Aston Labs
Welcome!
We think of mass spectrometry as the science and technology of ions. Our interests therefore involve construction of mass spectrometers, fundamental studies of ion reactions and collision processes and applications to medicine, biochemistry and organic chemistry. A central current interest is in ambient ionization and its application in imaging tumor margins, monitoring therapeutic drugs in biofluids, following embryological development, and identifying microorganisms. Each of these experiments involves minimal sample workup. Another strong interest is in preparative mass spectrometry, both by soft landing ions onto surfaces in vacuum to generate new materials and also by collecting the products of solution-phase reactions occurring in electrospray droplets. In situ analysis using miniature mass spectrometers coupled to ambient ion sources for environmental, public safety and other applications is of interest. So, too, is on-line reaction monitoring. Ion chemistry is astonishingly rich as exemplified by nitrogen atom insertion into n-alkanes, chirally selective amino acid clustering and C-C bond formation, all being studied at atmospheric pressure.
Check out the Cooks Group Research Poster for the latest research!
News
12/2022 Interview for the Point of Inquiry on our work on prebiotic peptide formation in microdroplets is now available! (https://pointofinquiry.org/2022/12/new-discovery-in-the-chemistry-of-life/)
11/2022 Congratulations to Sangeeta on her successful defenses! Hello, Dr. Pandey!
10/2022 Our team was announced as the Grand Prize Winner of the NCATS ASPIRE Reduction-to-Practice Challenge!
10/2022 Farewell to Lillian, and we wish her all the best at Corteva!
09/2022 Congratulations to Lillian on her successful defenses! Hello, Dr. Chen!
07/2022 Visitors from AbbVie (Dr. Nari Talaty (our Alumni), Dr. David Wagner, Dr. Junhai Yang, Dr. Andrew Bowman, and Dr. Robert Johnson) have a great discussion with us!
07/2022 We have 3 new patents issued! Check here!
06/2022 Congratulations to Prof. Cooks for receiving the Torbern Bergman medal from the Swedish Chemical Society
06/2022 Congratulations to Kai for getting the Robert R. Squires award!
06/2022 Congratulations to Hannah for getting the Alice Watson Kramer awards!
06/2022 Farewell to Lucas, and we wish him all the best at Thermo Fisher Scientific!
06/2022 Farewell to Hannah, and we wish her all the best at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine!
05/2022 Welcome our new group members Thomas Sams and Joshua Mendoza to join Aston Labs!
04/2022 Congratulations to Hannah and Lucas on their successful defenses! Hello, Dr. Brown and Dr. Szalwinski!
04/2022 Congratulations to Nicolás for being awarded 1st place in CBM Three-Minute Thesis Competition!
04/2022 Congratulations to Kai-Hung for winning the Eastman Summer Fellowship!
04/2022 A modified LTQ (Phoenix) is reborn from ash and is now keen for 2D MS/MS experiments!
Thanks for the tremendous efforts from Eric and Lucas!
04/2022 Congratulations to Hannah for winning the Thomas Keough Award!
03/2022 Dr. Steven Pringle from Waters Co. visited Aston Labs! Nice to meet you!
03/2022 Welcome our new group member Mahdiyeh Shahi to join Aston Labs!
10/2021 Congratulations to Prof. Cooks for being elected to Indian National Science Academy as Foreign Member
Latest Publications (view all)
L. Edwin Gonzalez, Lucas J. Szalwinski, Thomas C. Sams, Eric T. Dziekonski, and R. Graham Cooks "Metabolomic and Lipidomic Profiling of Bacillus Using Two-Dimensional Tandem Mass Spectrometry" Anal. Chem. (2022)
Nicolás M. Morato, Hannah Marie Brown, Diogo Garcia, Erik H. Middlebrooks, Mark Jentoft, Kaisorn Chaichana, Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa, and R. Graham Cooks "High-throughput analysis of tissue microarrays using automated desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry" Sci. Rep. (2022)
Announcements
We have an interview for the Point of Inquiry on our work on prebiotic peptide formation in microdroplets. The podcast episode is now available on multiple platforms (https://pointofinquiry.org/2022/12/new-discovery-in-the-chemistry-of-life/
We have released our demo for the high-throughput DESI-MS system, DESI-2D MS/MS, and brain cancer diagnosis.
Please check our research page or YouTube channel!
Find the podcast on our high-throughput DESI-MS system here!