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Macromolecules Research Paper

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Analyzing Biomolecules All living things are made out of billions of cells and all contain macromolecules. They are responsible for life as we know it. As we begin to advance and go farther in the field of science, more and more questions are being asked and to answer them, more technologies and techniques are being created and discovered. Scientists John B. Fenn and Koichi Tanaka (for mass spectrometry, a method of identifying molecules) and Kurt Wüthrich (for nuclear magnetic resonance, a method used to form a three-dimensional image of a molecule) created different methods that allowed us to embrace macromolecules. They created a revolutionary breakthrough that made chemical biology into the “big science” of our time. In 1988, Fenn had published two articles that made a large development for mass spectrometry with “electrospray” for macromolecules. In the first article, his studies of the polyethylene glycol molecules of an unknown mass demonstrated that the method could handle large molecule masses of high charges, while the second one showed the use of the method with medium-sized whole protein also. The release of ions is produced by spraying the sample with an electrical field so that charged droplets are produced. Ultimately, the water will evaporate and “stark naked” protein molecules stays. This …show more content…

He demonstrated that the protein molecules could be ionized using a soft laser desorption, SLD. A laser pulse would strike the sample when it is in a solid or viscous stage. When the sample absorbs the energy from the laser pulse, it “explodes” into small pieces. The molecules detach from one another, and are released as intact hovering molecule ions of low charge which then accelerate by an electrical field and then are detected by their time of flight. Tanaka was the first to show the suitableness of laser technology to the

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