The Mass Life Sciences Center has approved more than half a million in funding to Framingham State University for the purchase of two state-of-the-art pieces of equipment critical to the study of the life sciences.

The money will go toward the purchase of a Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS) system, which is the cornerstone of many analyses in biotechnology, including proteomics, drug development, metabolism and toxicology studies and the quantification of drugs in biological fluids.

"Currently, FSU does not have a functioning LC-MS instrument, which is one of the most used instruments in the pharmaceutical and chemical industries, fields which many of our students enter after graduation," says Chemistry Professor Sarah Pilkenton, who was a co-lead on the grant application along with Professor Shelli Waetzig. "This new equipment will have sweeping impacts in providing hands-on experience with these instruments as part of traditional laboratory courses and as tools for independent capstone research projects, making our STEM majors highly qualified candidates for careers in the life sciences."

The grant, which will enable FSU to purchase the equipment during the current fiscal year, will also cover the cost of a Benchtop NMR Spectrometer, which would provide an alternative to the 400MHz superconducting high-field instrument that was de-energized due to the global helium shortage. The benchtop NMR has many advantages, as it requires no cryogens, and has little to no maintenance costs associated with it.

Both undergraduate and graduate students studying science at FSU stand to benefit from the new equipment, including undergraduate students studying biochemistry, biology, chemistry, food science and graduate students enrolled in the University's Professional Science Master's program in biotechnology.

"The life science sector in Massachusetts is booming and at FSU we are fully committed to providing the highly educated workforce needed to fill these great job opportunities," says Dr. Margaret Carroll, Dean of the College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics at FSU. "We could not be more grateful to the Mass Life Sciences Center, which has consistently supported FSU over the years as we've developed our innovative science programs."

The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center is an economic development and investment agency with a mission of supporting the growth and development of the life sciences in Massachusetts.

Through public-private funding initiatives, the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center supports innovation, research and development, commercialization, and manufacturing activities in the fields of biopharma, medical device, diagnostics, and digital health.  As a quasi-public agency, Massachusetts Life Sciences Center also offers programs that fund innovation-driven economic and workforce development initiatives in Massachusetts.