Laser Ablation-ICP-MS

Laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) has become an established technique in the field of bioimaging providing insight into the multi-element distribution in biological samples with high sensitivity and at high resolution at the low µm scale.

With the equipment accessible, our group is at the moment on the forefront of elemental bioimaging. The laser ablation unit is equipped with the first commercially available ultrafast low dispersion ablation cell, called ‘Cobalt cell’. With pixel-acquisition rates of >200 Hz, the system provides higher sensitivity, sample throughput and spatial resolution compared to conventional systems. The ICP-MS instrument we use for analysis is a time-of-flight (TOF) based instrument. 

One major part is the study of metal-based anticancer drug distributions within target tissue (tumor, in vitro multicellular tumor spheroids) and organs in comparison to the underlying histology. We also focus on the development of elemental labelling techniques for mass cytometry applications to indirectly measure and quantify organic cell compounds in tissue sections.