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WSU Enters Worldwide, Exclusive License Agreement for Advanced Ion Mobility Spectrometry–Mass Spectrometry Tech

Herbert Hill
Herbert Hill

Excellims Corporation (Excellims), a leading provider of high performance ion mobility spectrometers (HPIMS), announced that the company has entered into an exclusive worldwide license agreement with Washington State University for a new instrumental method to interface an Ambient Pressure Ion Mobility Spectrometer (APIMS) to a Mass Spectrometer (MS). This new agreement is an expansion of an existing patent licensing agreement between Excellims and WSU. Developed in the laboratory of Dr. Herbert H. Hill Jr., a Regents Professor of chemistry at WSU who has been a leading researcher in the IMS field for 45 years, the new technology will significantly improve the ion transmission into the MS, potentially overcoming sensitivity challenges when interfacing APIMS to MS. » More …

Researcher affirms 86-year-old hypothesis

A Washington State University biologist has found what he calls “very strong support” for an 86-year-old hypothesis about how nutrients move through plants. His two-decade analysis of the phenomenon has resulted in a suite of techniques that can ultimately be used to fight plant diseases and make crops more efficient.

Michael Knoblauch, biological sciences
Michael Knoblauch

Some 90 percent of the food we consume at one time went through a plant’s phloem, the vascular system that carries sugars and other nutrients from leaves, where they are produced by photosynthesis, to roots and fruits. But scientists know so little about how this works, said Michael Knoblauch, professor in the WSU School of Biological Sciences, that they’re like cardiologists who haven’t learned about the heart. » More …

A new IMS breathalyzer for marijuana

Herb Hill
Herb Hill

A team of researchers at Washington State University’s Department of Chemistry has shed new light on the challenges surrounding the growing marijuana industry.

Prof. Herbert Hill and his team of researchers at the WSU Department of Chemistry have come up with a novel approach to measure drugs via breath with ion mobility spectrometry. IMS is currently used for explosives detection at airports and for chemical warfare detection. So Hill and his team decided to extend it further for illicit drug detection.

“I’m an ion mobility spectrometry person, that’s what I do and have been doing for many years,” Hill told R&D Magazine. “We began to focus primarily on THC, although the potential is for this technology to be used for many different kinds of drugs.”

Find out more

R&D Magazine

Student research supports LIGO, flight, bone development

Three undergraduate students were awarded $3,000 research grants from Washington River Protection Solutions as part of the Chancellor’s Summer Scholars Program at WSU Tri-Cities.

The students will conduct research collaboratively with faculty mentors, developing skills to prepare them for careers in science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) or a related field. Two of the three mentors are members of CAS faculty. » More …

‘Basketball IQ’ and the racial coding of the word

Examining the ambiguous yet ubiquitous term

David LeonardBy David Leonard, professor and chair, Dept. of Critical Culture, Gender, and Race Studies

In our era of analytics, statistics provide a new window into the game.

We have statistics for just about everything: player efficiency ratings, Expected Possession Value-Added, win shares, usage rates … but basketball IQ?

In a moment where numbers supposedly never lie and the beauty of the game can be boiled down to a formula, the emphasis on basketball IQ is of little surprise.

If only there was a test for basketball IQ…. » More …