Jackson Lab awarded $1.6M grant for ‘first of kind’ tech to decode disease

A gray machine stands out against a white background.

Photo / Courtesy, The Jackson Laboratory The imaging system — shown here in a rendering, and one of the first to be installed in the country — provides cell-by-cell analysis, nearly impossible up to now.

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By Laurie Schreiber

The Jackson Laboratory, a Bar Harbor biomedical research institution, has received a $1.6 million grant toward the purchase of a technology system that analyzes human cells and ultimately could help diagnose and treat disease.

The mass spectrometry system, called the Bruker timsTOF Ultra 2, is the first of its kind of Maine, and one of the first to be installed in the U.S., according to a news release.

The grant was awarded by the National Institutes of Health to JAX’s Protein Sciences Mass Spectrometry Service.

Cell-by-cell analysis

The system allows researchers to analyze the proteins and metabolites contained within individual cells, one at a time, to help advance new diagnostic tools and clinical therapies.

According to the lab, the technology will fuel the lab's mass spectrometry capabilities to decode complex diseases.

For example, Kristen O’Connell, a researcher at the lab, is studying what goes awry in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease. One step toward answering the question is comparing the levels of thousands of different proteins in healthy and diseased brain cells to better understand what changes with disease.

Up to now, cell-by-cell analysis has been nearly impossible.

“The level of sensitivity that this equipment has is unprecedented,” said Brian Hoffmann, director of protein sciences and project leader for the grant. “It will allow researchers to get new, very detailed insight into what is happening at the protein level within individual cells that can impact disease.”

Shared resource

For many years, the analysis needed could only be carried out by analyzing the contents of tens of thousands of cells at once. Recently, however, detection systems have begun improving, decreasing the number of cells required in a single sample.

The Bruker timsTOF Ultra 2 is one of the first mass spectrometry machines with a high enough sensitivity to perform analyses from single cells, according to the release.

The grant will also support the acquisition of an accessory instrument, called the CellenONE X1, that deposits one cell at a time into the well of a plate where it can then be processed and run on the Ultra 2 for analysis.

The cell is photographed before being processed, giving researchers additional quality control information on its size — and ensuring that it is just one cell.

Hoffmann said the system could be installed and running by late October.

All the mass spectrometry systems are available for use by scientists affiliated with JAX, as well as members of the Maine Idea Network of Biomedical Research Excellence, or INBRE, a network of 17 educational and research institutions. They include Bates, Bowdoin and Colby colleges and the University of Maine.

“One of the things I really like about working at JAX is that with the Scientific Research Services, we try really hard to push our instrumentation and innovation forward,” said Hoffmann. “Access to this equipment is really valuable for JAX labs and other Maine INBRE labs.”

O’Connell said she’s planning to be one of the first in line to use the equipment, which could ultimately provide insight into how molecular changes cause neurodegeneration — and how drugs could reverse those changes. 

“This has major implications for understanding disease mechanisms and accelerating the development of effective disease-modifying treatments for Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases,” said O’Connell.

Hoffmann said the single-cell equipment will also be useful for researchers in the lab’s cancer center.