Mass Spectrometry Shared Resource: Project Summary Chemistry Shared Resource Group Mass spectrometry is an essential analytical technique for the identification and structure elucidation of the wide variety of compounds that are important to the Purdue Center for Cancer Research (PCCR) members' research projects. These projects include studies on the design and synthesis of therapeutic agents for cancer treatment, the creation of diagnostic agents, and the investigation of basic cellular processes involved in cancer cell biology. Of additional importance is the ability of mass spectrometry to sort out reaction products to facilitate increased yield and understand where a reaction might be going wrong when the expected product is not obtained. As part of the Campus-wide Mass Spectrometry Center, the Mass Spectrometry Shared Resource (MS- SR) provides PCCR members access to all of the facility's mass spectrometers. This includes support for both routine analyses and collaborative analytical mass spectrometric capabilities (including problem solving by mass spectrometry). Taking advantage of the MS-SR staff's experience, in addition to routine mass spectrometry analyses, considerable effort has been made to make each of the ionization techniques a center of excellence for solving the difficult mass spectrometry research problems associated with PCCR research projects. The MS-SR currently has six mass spectrometers available to PCCR members. This includes Electrospray Ionization (ESI), Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization (MALDI) and Atmospheric Pressure Chemical Ionization (APCI) for the analysis of nonvolatile components, Electron Impact (EI) and Chemical Ionization (CI) for volatile components, and Inductively Coupled Argon Plasma Ionization (ICP) for multi- element analysis. In 2013, 23 PCCR members accessed these instruments and the MS-SR services, to support their research. As PCCR researchers continue to translate basic discoveries into deliverables (e.g. drug discovery), services such as those provided by the MS-SR for identifying and confirming molecular structures will only increase in importance.