Kenneth W. Lee Lab

The Lee research group focuses on developing mass spectrometry (MS) instrumentation and methods for investigating the structure of large, heterogeneous biomolecular structures.

With the development of electrospray ionization (ESI), a technique that liberates intact molecules from solution as ions, mass spectrometry has become a fairly routine analytical platform for studying metabolites, peptides, and lipids. Under the proper conditions, electrospray can also generate ions from proteins and biomolecular complexes without the loss of weak non-covalent interactions. Many studies suggest that these ions retain most or all of their liquid-phase structural elements, which facilitates the study of biological structures in the controlled, solvent-free environment of a mass spectrometer. Whereas other structural biology techniques – such as crystallography, NMR, and electron microscopy – require specialized sample preparation and tend to average over structural differences, ESI-MS requires fewer sample considerations and structures can be differentiated based on mass measurements.