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Kelsey Cook BS: Colorado College (1974) 616 Dabney/Buehler |
Keywords:
Mass spectrometry; ionization mechanisms; reaction monitoring; polymer analysis; biopolymer analysis; analytical chemistry
Description of Research:
Diversity and a balance between fundamentals and applications have been hallmarks of Kelsey Cook's work in mass spectrometry (MS). Over the span of his career, MS has grown to be perhaps the premier characterization tool for analysis of samples from fields as diverse as medicine, the environment, and forensics. It is a mainstay in the chemical, petroleum, biomedical, and electronics industries, among many others. The Cook group has touched on most of these areas, most recently becoming one of the only academic groups in the world to study and advance the field of process MS, wherein MS is used to facilitate control of factory processes for optimum efficiency, safety, environmental impact, and/or product quality. They are also developing novel membrane MS methods for rapid separation of mixtures, both to facilitate analysis in instances where simultaneous analysis is infeasible or unreliable, and to provide means for preparative isomer resolution, a capability of significant commercial interest. Characteristically, the development of these methods has included a focus on the underlying principles, so that new understanding as well as new tools are evolving from these efforts.
Through much of his career, Dr. Cook has studied the mechanisms of "desorption ionization" - the science of sampling ions from condensed phase, especially including solutions. The generation of ions is central to the practice of MS, and long posed a serious barrier to analysis of polymers (including biomaterials) and other large, interesting molecules. While Cook's early work with "electrohydrodynamic" MS (beginning in 1978) was something of a promising curiosity, his successful applications to both synthetic polymers and biomolecules was, at the time, unprecedented. These first successful studies of relatively high-mass materials sampled from solution were direct predecessors to modern electrospray (ES) MS methodology which has revolutionized the field of MS. More recently, editors of Analytical Chemistry selected for accelerated publication the Cook group's first studies utilizing fluorescence spectroscopy to help explain the chemical processes occurring within the spray which constitutes the genesis of the ES process. The paper appeared in February 1999 (barely three months after submission), and a sequel is already "in press."
Current work with a biological "flavor" is exemplified by collaboration with Dr. Ron Wetzel of the UT Memorial Hospital. On-line hydrogen/deuterium exchange monitored by ES MS shows promise for providing the first detailed insight into the mechanism of formation of amyloid fibrils associated with Alzheimer's disease. A long-range aim would be to devise means of blocking their formation.
Selected Publications:
- Simultaneous analysis of butene isomer mixtures using process mass spectrometry. K.H. Bennett, G.L. Seebach, and K.D. Cook, J. Am. Soc. Mass Spectrom. 11, 1079 (2000).
- Expanding simultaneous process mass spectrometric analysis. K.H. Bennett, K.D. Cook, J.L. Falconer, and R.D. Noble, J. Process Anal. Chem. 5, 42 (2000).
- Extension of isomer analysis by process mass spectrometry. K.D. Cook and K.H. Bennett, J. Process Anal. Chem. 5, 59 (2000).
- Ab amyloid fibrils Possess a core structure highly resistant to hydrogen exchange. I. Kheterpal, S. Zhou, K.D. Cook, and R. Wetzel, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 97, 13597 (2000).
- A mechanistic study of electrospray mass spectrometry: charge gradients within ES droplets and their influence on ion response. S. Zhou and K.D. Cook, J. Am. Soc. Mass Spectrom. 12, 206 (2001).