Proteomics Facility

Location and Hours

Hours

Monday – Friday

9 AM – 5 PM

Location

University of Vermont

Firestone Research Building

Room 143

Getting Started

  • Login to your iLab account with your approved iLab credentials in the top right corner.
  • Don’t have an iLab account? Sign up for one here!
  • See our help manuals for guidance using iLab:

Mission

The VBRN Proteomics Facility at the University of Vermont is a core facility funded by the Vermont Biomedical Research Network (NIH NIGMS INBRE: P20GM103449) and UVM to serve the lead Institution and research throughout the state as part of the IDeA Program mission of building research infrastructure. The Proteomics Facility is located in the Marsh Life Science Building and occupies 1,408 ft2 of lab and office space.

Goals

The Proteomics Core has provided mass spectrometry expertise and services to the VBRN research community since its inception in 2006.  The goals of the facility are to provide expertise and the latest proteomics technology to researchers at different institutions within and outside of Vermont and to establish a highly efficient research and educational environment for sharing ideas, experiences, and knowledge of proteomics.  The VBRN Proteomics Facility enables investigators to use an array of state-of-the-art mass spectrometry-based techniques for proteomics experiments, ranging from routine protein identification, post-translational modification characterizations and protein interactions to large-scale quantitative proteomic analyses using stable isotopes (stable isotope labeling by amino acids in cell culture, dimethyl labeling, and tandem mass tag).  The facility trains investigators in experimental design and proteomics methods, while assisting with data interpretation, manuscript preparation, and grant submission.

Impact

The facility’s impact on the development of the network is evidenced by the increasing number of analyses (over 1,000 samples per year), user bases (over 150 internal and external users in 2018 – 2019 alone), number of publications that include data obtained at the facility (180+ papers since 2006), and the number of grants supported (Over 50 grants from NIH, NSF, DOD, USDA, UVM and various Foundations).  The Core helps integrate a proteomics component into undergraduate classes at UVM and 6 Vermont Primarily Undergraduate Institutions. More than 300 undergraduate students have benefited from the Proteomics Outreach courses. 

For more details, please visit Impact/Outcome data https://vbrn.org/proteomics-impact/

Instrumentation

Photos can be seen at Proteomics Instrumentation

The Proteomics Facility is equipped with standard laboratory equipment (freezers, centrifuges, incubators, microscopes, analytical balances, etc.), a Shimadzu analytical HPLC system with UV detection for offline fractionation, electrophoresis systems, a Sutter P-2000 laser puller, a Savant SpeedVac concentrator, a Labconco lyophilizer, five mass spectrometers from Thermo Fisher Scientific, as well as a hydrogen deuterium exchange (HDX) workflow station:

  • Orbitrap Fusion Tribrid MS coupled to an EASY-nLC ULTRA UPLC system
  • Q-Exactive Hybrid Quadrupole-Orbitrap MS Plus coupled to an EASY-nLC 1200 UPLC system
  • LTQ Orbitrap Discovery MS coupled to a Surveyor HPLC system
  • LTQ XL Linear Ion Trap MS equipped with electron transfer dissociation (ETD) coupled to a Surveyor HPLC system
  • LTQ Linear Ion Trap MS coupled to a Prominence (Shimadzu) HPLC system
  • HDX workflow station, HDx-3 PAL (Leap Technologies), which can be coupled to the LTQ or LTQ-Orbitrap Discovery MS with a Workplace Modular systems cart for conducting HDX MS experiments

Data Processing

The Data Processing Room (MLS 333) maintains five high-performance computers and offers a suite of software including three copies of Proteome Discoverer 2.5 embedded with SEQUEST, MASCOT and Byonic, SCAFFOLD Q+S, SIEVE, PEAKS, Skyline, SimGlycan, and HD-Examiner to evaluate the datasets generated from various types of proteomics experiments. Working closely with the VGN Data Science Core, the Proteomics Facility staff provide tailored bioinformatic solutions to investigators.

Personnel

Dr. Ying Wai Lam

Core Director

(802) 656-4709

Ying-Wai.Lam@uvm.edu

Dr. Bin Deng

Manager

(802) 656-5099

Bin.Deng@uvm.edu

Sydney Cohn-Guthrie

Senior Research Lab Technician

Sydney.Cohn-Guthrie@uvm.edu