Chemistry

Assistant Professor Boone Prentice was selected to receive one of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowships! Congratulations!

According to the press announcement, 126 scholars from 51 institutions were selected to receive this prestigious award. These fellowships “honor exceptional researchers at US and Canadian educational institutions, whose creativity, innovation, and research accomplishments make them stand out as the next generation of leaders.” Adam F. Falk, the president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation stated in the announcement that “The Sloan Research Fellows represent the very best of early-career science, embodying the creativity, ambition, and rigor that drive discovery forward.”

Prof. Prentice’s fellowship, which was awarded in the field of Chemistry, focuses on developing high resolution molecular imaging using mass spectrometry. Prof. Prentice’s research is positioned at the interface of analytical chemistry, physical chemistry, organic chemistry, and chemical biology. His interdisciplinary development of next-generation chemical instrumentation, gas-phase reactions, novel sample preparation strategies, and computational tools are combined with imaging mass spectrometry spatial -omics technologies to visualize biochemical processes in tissues. These new fundamental advances are then used to understand the molecular pathology associated with important problems in human health, including infectious disease, neurodegeneration, and diabetes. His group has made significant advances in both technology development and understanding disease biochemistry. Check out his lab’s research website here.

Previous UF Chemistry recipients include Bill Jones (1963), Merle Bettiste (1967), Bill Dolbier (1970), David Micha (1971), Dave Richardson (1988), Bob Kennedy (1995), Mike Scott (2002), Adam Veige (2010), and Rebecca Butcher (2014).

The U.S. National Science Foundation has awarded Prof. Boone Prentice with a prestigious CAREER Award from the Chemical Measurement and Imaging (CMI) Program in the Division of Chemistry. The NSF CMI program supports research focusing on chemically-relevant measurement science and chemical imaging.

The 5-year award will fund research in the Prentice Group developing mass spectrometry methods for identifying subtle differences in the chemical structures of lipids and metabolites. The CAREER program is NSF’s most prestigious award for early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models and lead advances in research and education.

Lipid and metabolite biomolecules play vital roles in cellular functions and changes in their structures can signal changes in health and biology, but these differences can be difficult to characterize. The Prentice Group will develop experimental and computational methods that are more sensitive than existing approaches in identifying chemical changes in these biomolecules, which holds promise for enabling new biological discoveries and benefiting societal health.

As part of this project, Prof. Prentice will also develop a hands-on, laboratory-based workshop targeted towards underserved high school students in the local community. These outreach efforts are designed to help improve underrepresentation in science, increase public scientific literacy and engagement, improve educator development at the graduate and undergraduate student levels, and help develop a diverse and competitive scientific workforce.

Michael Christopher was awarded the NIH F31 Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award from the National Cancer Institute in December 2024. Michael is a PhD candidate in the analytical chemistry division co-mentored by Dr.’s Timothy Garrett and Boone Prentice. Prior to joining the Dr. Garrett and Dr. Prentice labs in 2021, Michael studied biochemistry at North Carolina State University (NCSU). While at NCSU, Michael was first introduced to mass spectrometry in a graduate-level course taught by Dr. Erin Baker. Inspired by the topic, he then interned at Berkeley Lab under Dr. Edward Baidoo analyzing microbial metabolism. Returning to Dr. Baker’s lab for more undergraduate research, Michael broadened his knowledge by assisting in lipidomic research. At the University of Florida, Michael’s PhD research utilized liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry to investigate the metabolism and behavior of indole pyruvate metabolism, a tautomeric metabolite in tryptophan metabolism. With support from the F31 award, Michael will continue to develop techniques to identify and characterize natural, biomedically relevant, indole/tryptamine containing compounds. Compounds with tryptamine and or indole substructures, specifically psilocin from psychoactive mushrooms, are shown to help curb substance use disorders. Methods that can rapidly screen and characterize natural sources for these compounds will therefore hold promise in fighting substance use disorders, a goal of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). Michael credits all his past and present academic mentors, family and friends, and lab members for their invaluable support. His goal is to pursue entrepreneurship upon graduation. In his free time, he enjoys cooking, working out, fishing, and reading about science outside of his field of study.

The Thomson Medal Award is named after Sir JJ Thomson, who was responsible for the first mass spectrograph and its resulting data more than 100 years ago. He also predicted many features of modern mass spectrometry. He discovered the electron using mass spectrometry and won the Nobel Prize in 1906 for his research.

The International Mass Spectrometry Foundation has announced that the 2024 Thomson Medal will be awarded to Dr Richard A Yost “for outstanding achievements in and distinguished service to international mass spectrometry”.   The award will be presented to Dr Yost at the 25^th International Mass Spectrometry Conference on August 19^th in Melbourne, Australia. He will present a plenary lecture on “The Role of Tandem (Hyphenated) Methods for Mixture Analysis”. 

In choosing him for this award, the IMSF said “Dr Yost has made substantial and unique contributions to the development and application of mass spectrometry in interdisciplinary collaborative settings and has been driving community growth and education forward in a way that the jury, consisting of the national mass spectrometry societies associated in the IMSF, found to be decisive in bestowing this honor on the awardee.”

As Dr Yost said, “I am deeply honored to be chosen for this award, reflecting the recognition of the entire global mass spectrometry community.  I want to recognize all the individuals and organizations that have supported throughout my career, including my mentors, colleagues, and students.” 

Rick is University Professor Emeritus and past Head of Analytical Chemistry at the University of Florida.  He is perhaps best known as the co-inventor (along with Chris Enke of Michigan State University and Jim Morrison of LaTrobe University in Australia) of the triple quadrupole mass spectrometer.  The triple quad has become the most common mass spectrometer in the world, with sales of well over $1 billion per year.   It is today the gold standard for quantitative analysis in metabolomics, clinical analysis, drug discovery and development, environmental analysis, and a wide variety of other application areas.  That invention and subsequent research in Rick’s lab at the University of Florida have helped transform tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) from a niche research area, largely for fundamental chemistry studies, into a practical, widely available analytical technique. 

Dr Yost’s research has had an enormous impact on public welfare and human health. For example, the triple quad enabled wide-scale screening programs for all newborns across the US and around the world; over 10 million babies are screened annually using this technique, identifying serious and life-threatening diseases in over 10,000 newborns each year).  Over the last decade, the triple quad has replaced routine clinical tests for many important disease biomarkers; it has also streamlined drug development programs, enabling new and improved therapeutics to reach patients at unprecedented rates and dramatically earlier. 

Dr Yost has amassed an incredible record of research accomplishments, citizenship, teaching, and sharing great science.  He has graduated well over 100 PhD students and has served the mass spec community in many venues, including serving on the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) Board for 10 years, including as President from 2018-2020.  He was a founding member of the International Mass Spectrometry Society back in 1998, and has presented over a hundred plenary and invited lectures at international venues, including IMSC.  He has also directed the NIH Southeast Center for Integrated Metabolomics since 2013 and the nationwide NIH Metabolomics Consortium since 2018.