Award for Outstanding Research Publication

Waters Corporation announced that the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) presented Professor Alison Ashcroft of the University of Leeds with the first Ron Hites Award for Outstanding Research Publication in the Journal of the American Society of Mass Spectrometry (JASMS). Professor Ashcroft’s paper titled, Monitoring Copopulated Conformational States During Protein Folding Events Using Electrospray Ionization-Ion Mobility Spectrometry-Mass Spectrometry, appeared in the December 2007 issue of JASMS and was co-authored by Waters scientists Kevin Giles and Robert Bateman along with University of Leeds researchers David Smith and Professor Sheena Radford. Professor Ashcroft’s team acquired the research data for the publication on a Waters® SYNAPT High Definition MS™ (HDMS™) System.

ASMS judged the publication on the basis of its ‘innovative aspects, technical quality, likely stimulation of future research, likely impact on future applications, and the quality of the presentation’.

Professor Ashcroft received the Award and $2,000 cash at the 57th ASMS Conference on Mass Spectrometry and Allied Topics.

The Award is named in honor of Professor Ronald A. Hites of Indiana University who spearheaded the creation of JASMS in 1988 while President of ASMS. JASMS is devoted to the publication of research papers covering all aspects of mass spectrometry from all fields of science including chemistry, physics, geology, environmental, biological, health and life sciences.

Shortly after purchasing her SYNAPT™ HDMS System in 2007, Professor Ashcroft had this to say about it: “It’s adding a new dimension to our research. We can now quantify the amount of protein that is in its native state and the amount that is unfolded and partially folded. We can also monitor which particular conformers are consumed during the assembly process. This is providing important new insights and detail into how biomolecules work at the molecular level.”