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Two smiling faculty members stand in a new lab space in front of computers and mass spectrometry equipment.

On Feb. 13, the Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Proteomics Shared Resource (PSR) and the Office of the Vice President for Research Innovation (OVPRI) hosted a ribbon cutting and tour of its new lab space and tandem mass spectrometer, welcoming guests within and outside of VCU and VCU Health. The PSR team captivated an engaged group of researchers and investigators and sparked collaborative ideas for future projects.

Proteomics plays a significant role in diagnosis and drug development for diseases such as cancer. These new instruments will allow researchers to get even more precise insights into the mass and makeup of, for example, a peptide at the molecular level.

“Through this partnership with Massey and OVPRI, we now have instruments that can identify more proteins incredibly fast and can slice and dice a peptide up a lot of different ways to give you a comprehensive answer (on the makeup of that peptide),” said Adam Hawkridge, Ph.D., director of the Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center Proteomics Shared Resource (PSR) and associate professor in the Department of Pharmaceutics.

The shared resource provides mass spectrometry-based analysis services that span the identification, characterization and quantification of proteins. Now equipped with three advanced Orbitrap-based LC-MS/MS instruments, the PSR team is primed to assist investigators at Massey, VCU Health, the Monroe Park Campus and external customers.

Before the leaders cut the ribbon, John Ryan, Ph.D., OVPRI’s associate vice president of research and development, applauded the “sheer tenacity” of Hawkridge leading the way on elevating this core.

“If you know anything at all about core facilities, you know that they make a lot of the work that we need to do — when we write our grants, when we publish our papers —, they make it actually doable and affordable,” he said. “I have a grant I’m submitting this week. If I don’t have a letter from a core facility, I might as well not even submit it. And when I get back my grant review, I will never see anything other than a 1 or a 2 (a perfect or near-perfect score) on Facilities every time, and it’s because of people like Dr. Hawkridge.”

A group of leaders cut a ribbon in a new lab space at the Molecular Medicine Research Building.
From left: Massey director Robert A. Winn, M.D., Srirama Rao, Ph.D., vice president, OVPRI; Paul Fawcett, Ph.D., Massey associate director for shared resources and OVPRI executive director of research infrastructure; Arjun Rijal, Massey PSR senior biological mass spectrometrist; Chuck Lyons, Massey PSR lab/resource manager, and Adam Hawkridge, Ph.D., Massey PSR director. (Photo courtesy of Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center)
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