The research interests of my group, in
the Michael Barber Centre for Mass Spectrometry, involve the
development and application of state-of-the-art mass spectrometry, with
particular reference to applications in the biomedical sciences.
In recent years, a major effort has been devoted to proteomics, an area
of post-genome science that has been enabled by the international
efforts to sequence the genomes of many organisms, including man.
Proteomics involves the qualitative and quantitative determination of
the protein compositions of cells, with attention to the
characterisation of the protein/protein complexes that are the real
biochemical machinery. The Michael Barber Centre hosts, in
collaboration with the Department of Biomolecular Sciences, the
Leukaemia Research Fund National Proteomics Facility. The strongly
interdisciplinary nature of our research is further emphasised by our
participation in the Consortium for Post-Genome Science, a heavily
funded programme involving UMIST, the Universities of Liverpool and
Manchester, and the Daresbury Laboratory. Within the Consortium, we
lead the Third-Generation Proteomics project which is funding the
purchase of a 9.4 tesla Fourier-transform ion cylotron resonance mass
spectrometer.
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