Mass Spec Puns

Hi everyone, I am trying to budget some instrumentation purchases and I am seeing some really competitive pricing from LabX for used model instruments vs. the current model. I’m looking at some older Waters ion mobility mass spectrometers and they can be purchased for <$100k which is appealing compared to the typical $500k-1M range for the new/current models.

Can anyone comment on experiences purchasing mass specs from LabX or comparable vendors?

Sorry in advance if this is a stupid or 'how long is a piece of string' question.

I have a Waters 2695 HPLC that I use for personal research as a hobby, identifying proteins up to ~1500 Da. Recently I've come across coelution issues and I'm interested in adding in a mass spec that will play nice with my HPLC, mostly as part of my own passion.

Does anyone have any recommendations for something that would fit a budget of ~$10k or am I being ridiculously hopeful? I'm open to used/refurbished if that would be the only realistic way for me to get one but even those seem way out of my range.

I've had a look and the Waters Acquity QDa seems to be exactly what I'm looking for - a single quad mass spec enabling me to get accurate m/z data while being beginner friendly and integrating with my Waters HPLC. Alas I got quoted a number way too high for my budget.

Would appreciate some pointers!

Hi all, just a couple of quick questions for you. I'm planning to play the legendary edition trilogy when I get my new laptop, which will likely be a Dell Inspiron 15. However, I'm a bit clueless when it comes to specs and wanted to get some advice.

Question 1: Is 8gb of RAM enough for the game to run smoothly? I have 8gb on my current PC (Dell Inspiron 15R circa 2013-ish) and it just barely ran the original ME3 on the lowest graphics settings.

Question 2: How well will the game run on an Intel i-5 11320H or an AMD Ryzen 5 5500U 6-core processor compared to an Intel i-711390H or AMD Ryzen 7 5700U 8-core processor? The latter two seem to add £100 or so in cost. I'm willing to pay that to have a lag-free gaming experience, but I don't want to pay extra for a more powerful processor if it's redundant for what I want to use it for. My current processor is an Intel i-5 4200U.

For additional context, it's fine if I have to turn down the graphics quality a bit in the game's settings to make it run better; I'm not invested enough in super high quality 4k to pay extra for it. I'm also not a big PC gamer in general; I generally just use my laptop for Netflix, Youtube, and MS Office.

I think this is a key, intentional element of Part I and Part II: The inability to prevent characters from making decisions you think are destructive and will lead to misery.

If you're anything like me, you enjoy the sense of agency that comes from using adventure type video games to influence terrible situations for the better and make people rise to difficult circumstances and not give in to bad impulses.

It's a wonderful part of the escapism of video games because bad situations in real life aren't usually malleable enough for you to draw satisfaction from your actions.

This principle is responsible for some of my favorite moments in gaming. For example:

In The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine expansion, there is a mission called "The Hunger Game" in which you can use your deductive reasoning skills, your instinct for mercy, and your understanding of the themes displayed in the mission, to free a woman from a curse which has caused her to feel as though she is constantly starving for over a century. It is a sublime act of mercy and, for me, remains the high water mark for feeling as though I made something in a video game world better by rising to a challenge.

In Mass Effect 2, choosing to use your influence as Commander Shepard to help your crew deal with their personal demons and using your knowledge of their individual strengths and weaknesses to organize them during the final assault is the key thing that separates the catastrophic endings from the immaculate one.

Given this well-established practice, you come into a lot of video games with the idea that you can rise to a challenge and salvage / ameliorate bad situations by pure effort and THAT is why games such as The Last of Us series, Prince of Persia (2008) and Spec Ops: The Line which subvert that expectation hurt MORE than experiencing tragic circumstances through a movie or a book. There are many books and movies that depict gruesome circumstances which are entirely the fault of the characters involved but you don't have that additional feeling of being actively denied the opportunity to make anything better than the characters make it.

I think this principle has been on people's minds lately because I have seen posts around the internet about how tragedy tends to arise when characters could have possibly made better choices but didn't because of their inbuilt character traits.

As I've said, there are many examples of games which subvert the expectation of making things better:

Prince of

Organic Chemist working with unusual fluoro-substituted lactone. Product visually UV active but MS conditions don’t result in observable responses. Arguably the starting material and product should have an MS response under UPLC-MS with MeCN/0.1%FAinH2O following this paper (10.1016/j.ijms.2004.02.009).

They use ESI detection on simple furanones, with a not-so-clearly stated LCMS. Besides fluorinated substituents along the ring, my structures are very similar to the paper.

Can my issue be routinely solved by adjusting to higher ionization potentials at the detector or is there some other theory/aspect I haven’t considered to troubleshoot lack of an MS response?

Basically what the question says. What would be your approach? I am still a beginner at MS so, sorry if it is something obvious. Thank you for your help!

Not sure if this is allowed here but I’m looking for a Scientist, Analytical Dev Mass Spec person. Heavy on the instrument use, preferably Sciex, Large Molecules/Biologics, Characterizing proteins, in the Bay Area. This position would be running instruments and working closely with the Executive Director and CTO.

BA or PhD welcome! Very healthy comp package with a 401k policy that matches 5% of your first 4%. Start up with roughly 150 people

PM me!

I've heard a lot of people talk a lot about both, and I know I'll enjoy both. So which should I get? I have a relative who is advocating for Mass Effect.

So I've looked around a bit now and I can't find any reports or test results available online anywhere. I'm hoping somebody could post some links or at least point me in the right direction if these reports or test results are out there

Surely by now with how widespread these m30 pressed pills have become, and how many deaths have been attributed to them, that there would be multiple mass spectrometry results available to the public. I was hoping to be able to find a study that sampled pills from various batches, across multiple locals.

I know the general consensus is that these pills contain Fentanyl or one of the many analogues of Fentanyl. However I have seen lots of anecdotal evidence that they also can contain meth, pcp, benzo analogues, carfentanil(which I'm a bit dubious on), mephedrone, caffeine anhydrous, ketamine, and lesser-known RC's. Then I know from firsthand experience there are also ones out there completely benign, as far as I could tell, and we're nothing more than binder and filler. Speaking of binders and fillers, I would also like to know what they're using for these as well as the inclusion of any other non-psychoactive substances.

I've heard various different reasons as to why they would contain any of these extra components. That range from cross-contamination of preparation tools and work space, all the way to being a deliberate inclusion in order to create multiple lines of dependency and a far more severe withdrawal affect. This is all anecdotal evidence that I've sourced across different forums and social media sites.

So I have been on a mission to find any hard evidence that either supports these claims or refutes them. Peer-reviewed studies and or Mass spectrometry results (from reliable sources) are what I'm after. But I would also like to take a look at any other evidence that you would deem pertinent to my search. I'm sure there are multiple autopsy toxicology reports available for deaths that are linked to M30s, however for the sake of my research I'm going to deem those as unsubstantial evidence. I have plenty of anecdotal evidence already but I'm open to reading people's personal experiences with this, but if you are claiming your statements to be factual please have the sources to back them up.

Website links should lead to reputable and non biased pages. Video evidence, sources need to be cited within the video or shared in the description. Photographic evidence, if the pictures are coming from an image host make

My lab has about 4 different instruments which are quite old and only print data to .txt files. Each of these text are designed to be printed to a physical page, and have page breaks manually inserted with all sorts of header information printed at the top of each page. An example is included at the bottom here.

I have a bootleg method of copying the data to excel, importing via excel text import wizard, cutting the useless stuff out, and then repeating this process for each single spectrum that I collect. It's a pain.

Does anyone have a suggestion for how to automate this process, or at least speed it up?

Here is a snippet of an example printout. I tried to shorten it to keep the post shorter. At minimum I would be able to just collect all of the wavelenth and intensity information and the rest could be appended to another file later.

Data Print

Date: 01/01/02 Page: 1

File Name: 01

DI Water Blank

Created: 00:09 01/01/02

Data: Original

Spectrum Type: EM

EX Wavelength: 276 nm

Slit Width: EX:10nm EM:10nm

Scan Speed: Fast

Sensitivity: Low

Response Time: Auto

Shutter: Auto, Closed

Wavelength (nm.) Intensity

450 0.220

451 0.072

452 0.028

453 0.032

454 0.026

455 0.080

456 0.095

457 0.113

458 0.097

459 0.107

460 0.070

461 0.094

462 0.157

463 0.152

464 0.122

465 0.218

466 0.206

467 0.262

468 0.295

469 0.383

470 0.425

471 0.434

472 0.416

473 0.434

474 0.466

475 0.536

476 0.491

477 0.453

478 0.465

479 0.453

480 0.414

481 0.403

482 0.371

483 0.374

484 0.324

485 0.280

486 0.240

487 0.210

488 0.221

489 0.161

490 0.155

491 0.092

492 0.057

I just wanted to share, this has been a less than stellar time for me, and glad it's finally over (fingers crossed)

Are there any low cost, effective alternatives to Mass Spectrometry?

Edit: sorry! Been quite busy and haven't been able to check the comments. But I'm just looking to determine the composition of the test sample.

Shot in the dark but....

If anyone knows or has a Thermo LXQ mass spectrometer that is broken/non-functional/abandoned, our lab is in desperate need of a component called the "top cover plate"

Please... from an also desperate graduate student...

Hi, I'm a grad student doing some metabolomics experiments, and I'm new to mass spec. The protocol calls for a cell pellet to be resuspended and lysed in 75% (v/v) methanol, which the metabolomics core will do for me. I'm wondering how total protein concentration can be measured, if there needs to be a separate assay or if it can be determined by mass spec? Thank you!

• 64-bit processor and operating system
• Windows 10 Home Single Language
• Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-8300H CPU @ 2.30GHz
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650
• Network: Broadband Internet connection
• Storage: 196 GB available space
• Sound Card: DirectX 12

My question posted to MathWorks about using the MS functions

As explained in the post, I am working with a data set that is currently in Excel. I have been able to import it into MatLab.

But the data is not strictly retention time vs m/z vs signal intensity.

I have charge state information for all fragments, experimental monoisotopic and average masses, and peak areas.

So the data is already a list of peaks with this information about each peak.

I am wondering if anyone knows about the specific format requirements for a PeakList in MatLab. The mspeaks function will create a PeakList from the {separation variable} vs intensity data, and identifies the centroids and can remove noise, among other things. But unfortunately, my data is not appropriate for the input of that function. So I essentially need to recreate the output of that function.

Does anyone have any ideas?

The peak at 55 is just baffling me. My main thought is to form a CH2=CHCO acylium ion, but I cannot think of a way to form it.

Or it can be C4H7 methyl cyclobutane, formed through dehydration?

https://preview.redd.it/vsi4hacpyhp71.jpg?width=1937&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d98482701dafc081148b6afdaa4f0d2ffd8453e3

Hey all

I saw there were some resources in the pinned post about Quad MS and didnt quite find a lot of operational resources. I was also looking at Agilent’s courses about using its 6490 LC/MS Triple Quad, for a whopping 3000$, but feel the cost is a little too much to justify.

Is there any resources that are free anyone knows about for this instrument that would be similar to Agilent courses?

Can anyone suggest a good mass spectrometry or proteomics course or other materials for absolute beginners? The field moved so fast the last few years that everything seems outdated.

Hi everyone!

I recently applied to a full-time Mass Spec. position working with LC-MS at a local bioinformatics company. To be honest, I didn't think I had a shot but I saw the posting as soon as they posted it, quickly wrote up a decent cover letter, and sent it along with my application. Well, to my surprise the hiring manager said I was the first to apply and my application was interesting and he would like to interview me, but since they just posted it wanted to wait for some more applications as well.

Well, today they contacted me with a date for the interview which is a week from today. I don't know if it matters, but I'm from Canada. I have my honors BSc. in Bio-medical Science & I graduate with my MSc. in Computer Science in Data Analytics in August (It's part-time so I can work this job full-time). I actually switched from pharmaceutical chem mid undergrad so I have a lot of chem & biochem courses. The job posting specifically said they're looking for someone to train, the only practical experience I have in a lab is from undergrad courses, I haven't had a job in Science or Comp Sci yet. I have some LC experience and have done some MS in courses as well.

I'm currently going over the "Helpful Mass Spec Videos & Tutorials" pinned post at the top here in the meantime. Any tips or things I can read or watch within the week before my interview would be greatly appreciated!

Hello!

I'm working on a molecular ion peak mass spec problem and I'm a bit confused. I thought this would have a peak at 242, a peak twice as intense at 244, and a peak as intense as the first at 246 (1:2:1 ratio). When I looked up pictures of the mass spec to confirm this, I found they had peaks at 163 and 165? I'm just a bit confused on why you wouldn't add it all up including all of the possibilities for combos of the two bromine isotopes. Thank you!

Hi everyone, I’m hoping to find some help with y’all. We are a small lab that has a sciex triple quad 6500+. We were playing around with ion source voltages in the method the other day to find the best one for our samples. We went back to our original method of 5500. The machine ran all morning yesterday, then in the evening stopped. Trying to run just methanols, the machine will fail about 1-2 minute into the run. It gives the error in the subject line and also says reason: stopped by user. Please help us.

This is cross-posted from the r/massspectrometry sub.

Does anyone in this community have experience with MatLab’s mass spec functions?

My question posted to MathWorks about using the MS functions

As explained in the post, I am working with a data set that is currently in Excel. I have been able to import it into MatLab.

But the data is not strictly retention time vs m/z vs signal intensity.

I have charge state information for all fragments, experimental monoisotopic and average masses, and peak areas.

So the data is already a list of peaks with this information about each peak.

I am wondering if anyone knows about the specific format requirements for a PeakList in MatLab. The mspeaks function will create a PeakList from the {separation variable} vs intensity data, and identifies the centroids and can remove noise, among other things. But unfortunately, my data is not appropriate for the input of that function. So I essentially need to recreate the output of that function.

Does anyone have any ideas?

This feels excessive