Paper BI-MoM1
SIMS Surface Science from SAMs to 6S Scaffolds

Monday, December 12, 2016, 8:00 am, Room Milo

Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) generates chemically rich, complex data that can encode information about surface composition, molecular conformation, orientation and more. However, due to the complexity and magnitude of the data, it is imperative that research projects be carefully planned out before the researchers attempt to extract this information using ToF-SIMS. Professor Ratner understood this challenge and recognized that, after utilizing a well planned research strategy, applying multivariate analysis methods (MVA) could aid to better understand ToF-SIMS data and use it more efficiently. This idea, generated more than 20 years ago, led me on a journey exploring the complexities of ToF-SIMS through the use of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) that has continued into exploring complex organic systems such as cells, tissues and tissue engineered scaffolds. In this presentation I will highlight the work pioneered by the ideas of Buddy Ratner that helped start the MVA revolution in SIMS analysis and has led to the development of methods that help to more efficiently process and better understand secondary ion mass spectrometry data. Examples will be shown from controlled experiments with SAMs, cells, tissues and tissue engineering scaffolds. Work with SAMs helped demonstrate that combining MVA with SIMS and well controlled substrates could help us better understand the SIMS fragmentation process and discover new information encoded in the relative intensities of the peaks. This set the foundation for processing more complex systems and using MVA and SIMS to characterize the chemical differences in more complex systems. This has led to one of our current projects involving characterizing tissue engineering scaffolds with cells in 2D and 3D.