Opportunity Title:

Liquid Chromatography- Quadrupole Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry

Research Area:

Safer Chemicals

EPA Lab/Center/Office:

National Exposure Research Laboratory (NERL)

Location:

Research Triangle Park, NC

Duration:

12 months

Brief Summary:

There is a need to develop new methods and approaches that can generate exposure data on the growing number of chemicals in commercial use. NERL's Exposure Methods and Measurements Division is developing suspect screening and non-targeted analysis (NTA) methods to gather xenobiotic data in a variety of environmental and biological media to understand the totality of lifetime exposures.

Opportunity Description:

Non-targeted analysis (NTA) involves using instrumentation to accurately measure the mass of components in a sample, without any preconceived notion about what those components might be. NTA seeks the answer to “What's in this sample?” This internship opportunity seeks an individual to help develop a) NTA instrumental analyses methods, b) practical approaches for the characterization and analyses of samples; c) approaches for data interpretation and data handling; d) prioritization strategies of detected features for identification; e) strategies for data storage, sharing and reporting.  We continue to increase the team of people working on this project; from chemists, to modelers and informaticists. The overall goal for non-targeted analysis projects are to develop a higher throughput workflow to rapidly provide exposure data for high impact projects (emergency response), models, and ultimately regulatory decision makers.

Opportunities for Professional Development:

The participant will increase knowledge and skills in the use of liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (QTOF and TOF), develop non-targeted analysis skills, learn new computational approaches, and fine tune scientific writing.

Point of Contact or Mentor:

Elin Ulrich, ulrich.elin@epa.gov