Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - EU_FT-ICR_MS (European Network of Fourier-Transform Ion-Cyclotron-Resonance Mass Spectrometry Centers)

Teaser

The goal of the EU_FT-ICR_MS project (grant agreement 731077) is to establish a European network of FT-ICR (Fourier Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance) mass spectrometry (MS) centers in association with a manufacturer and a SME software company to afford access to all European...

Summary

The goal of the EU_FT-ICR_MS project (grant agreement 731077) is to establish a European network of FT-ICR (Fourier Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance) mass spectrometry (MS) centers in association with a manufacturer and a SME software company to afford access to all European academic and industrial researcher to very high resolution mass spectrometry. Mass spectrometry (MS) has become the most ubiquitous analytical techniques in use today, providing more information on the composition and the structure of a substance from a smaller amount of sample than any other techniques. In many police TV series the mass spectrometer answers all questions. It is almost true as mass spectrometry in used in many fields of day life: pollutant identification, illicit drug enforcement, food adulteration, newborn screening… as well in many scientific fields: detection of biomarker of disease, epigenetic modifications, ascertaining trace of life in space… MS is characterized by the existence of a large range of mass analyzers leading to instruments from less than 50 thousands euros to several millions euros. Among the MS instruments FT-ICR MS are the most powerful as they offers up to 100 fold higher mass resolving power and mass accuracy than any other MS technique. The EU_FT-ICR_MS network includes 11 FT-ICR MS centers from 8 different European countries (Belgium, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and United Kingdom) and 1 third country (Russia), 2 SMEs and an associated European FT-ICR MS manufacturer. It includes centers equipped with up-to-date FT-ICR MS and expertise which will cover most of the field in which FT-ICR mass spectrometry is involved: BioOrganic & BioInorganic, Cultural heritage, Glycomics, Environment, Imaging, InfraRed Spectroscopy of Ions in the Gas Phase, Lipidomics, Medicine, Petroleum & Coal Oil, Nanoparticles, Organic chemistry, Physical chemistry, Proteomics, Structural biology. To reach its goal the EU_FT-ICR_MS network is organized in four scientific and educational work-packages WP1 Transnational access, WP2 Training and Education, WP3 Open Data and e-Infrastructure WP 4 Joint Research Action and two support work-packages WP 5 Dissemination; WP6 Consortium management).

Work performed

\"TNA is a key point of the EU FT-ICR MS network and is part of the Objective 1 of the Consortium: “Provide the EU academic, SME and industrial communities with access to world-class FT-ICR MS centers”. All Centers committed to 100 TNA days over the 4 years of the project, corresponding to an average of 25 days and roughly 10 projects per year. During this 1.5-year period, 55 projects were successfully completed within the entire EU FT-ICR MS network, 9 of which were follow-up of the first submission. TNA projects were submitted mainly by researchers from universities or other higher education organizations, from 17 different countries. Despite the number of TNA projects falling behind the previewed, the duration of the TNAs was, in most projects, much higher than the 2.5 days initially allocated for each project, varying between 3 and 12 days. As mentioned, a TNA project is not limited to sample analysis, but also includes post-processing data analysis and interpretation, which may extend the project for more time than expected. Therefore, considering an average of 7.5 days per submitted project (1.5 working week), the total number of days provided by the consortium during the reporting period was in fact higher than the estimated, 412.5 days instead of 337.5 days.
The End User School 1 (EUS1) is the first school organized within the EU_FT-ICR_MS network. The objective of EUS1, namely to bring together people who wish to learn the basics of FT-ICR MS or are beginner users of this technology, was completely fulfilled.
The Advanced User School 1 (AUS1) is the second school organized within the EU_FT-ICR_MS network. It was held at the Faculty of Science of the University of Lisboa (Portugal). AUS1 was aimed to expand knowledge and abilities of qualified researchers from academia and industry, to foster the development and expand the applications of FT-ICR MS.
The Short Course 1 (SC1) is the first short course and the very first meeting ever organized within the EU_FT-ICR_MS network. It was held at the University of Rostock, Rostock (Germany) in the period 5-7 March 2018. This first short course was largely oversubscribed and the registration had to be close a few days after the opening.
The Short Course 2 (SC2) on “FT-ICR for gas-phase ion spectroscopy and structural characterization” was held in Orsay (France) on 5-7 November 2018. Tutorial lectures, instrument demos and hands-on exercises were focused on the applications of Infrared Multiple Photon Dissociation of gaseous ions irradiated with the bright light of IR laser sources available at the CLIO (Centre Laser Infrarouge d\'Orsay) center.
The Short Course 3 (SC3) on \"\"Ion-molecule reactions: fundamental and analytical aspects\"\" was held at Sapienza University, Roma (Italy) on 25-27 June 2019. T Despite the fundamental character of the ion-molecule reaction topic the Short Course 3 was also largely oversubscribed.
The proposal to organize the 14th edition of the European FTMS conference in Cascais, Portugal was presented by Carlos Cordeiro at the 13th European FTMS Workshop (Freising (Munich), Germany, April 2018) and accepted by the entire assembly.
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Final results

In WP03 - Open Data and e-Infrastructure a first version of the Data Management has been provided. Indeed, data generation and collection is required in this project in the scope of keeping a record of the measurements and experiments performed within the EU_FT-ICR_MS project. This project aims at creating an infrastructure which enables the European scientific community to discover, use, and work on FT-ICR MS technology; the DMP allows this community to store, access and analyze data, with the purpose of improving data quality, interoperability, user open access, reproducibility, data mining, etc... This implies the collection and conservation of all the produced data. The stored information consists in raw data, result data, metadata and programs, each data entry with an expected size between 1MB to 10GB. These data may be coming from physical measurements sample description or may be generated through forms or automatically.

The WP4 concerns Joint Research activities. A specialty has been attributed to each team, besides the general use of FTICR-MS. The general objectives of the WP4 aim improving the quality of service to end-users with existing instruments, data treatment and sample preparation; (ii) increasing the application field of FT-ICR MS by developing new uses of existing methodologies; (iii) putting into action newly introduced FT-ICR MS techniques for exploring new scientific fields; (iv) pushing innovative developments in FT-ICR MS for opening solutions for unsolved problems. The WP has been divided into tasks involving different laboratories and led by a task leader. The objectives also focus on a comparison of performances of laboratories by organizing a round robin test and getting them familiar with a quality management system. The first Round-robin test performed within the EU_FT-ICR_MS network provided very satisfying results on the different equipment performance among the network centers, as well as the consistency of data including mass accuracy, sensitivity and MSMS performance.

Website & more info

More info: https://eu-fticr-ms.eu/.