Final Report Summary - BIOIONS (Biological ions in the gas-phase: New techniques for structural characterization of isolated biomolecular ions) The BIOIONS project has been successful in delivering new methods for performing laser spectroscopy of gas-phase biological molecules. Such studies are of critical importance as they provide detailed information on the electronic and geometric structures of important biomolecules away from the complications of the bulk environment. In this project, we have adapted commercial mass spectrometers to allow laser spectroscopy to be conducted on bioions within the mass spectrometer. This methodology has the potential to be an important analytical tool as it can combine mass identification with optical laser spectroscopy, thus providing an unambiguous fingerprinting identification of molecular species. In addition to its potential as an analytical tool, the apparatus developed has been demonstrated to represent a robust and reliable instrument for measuring laser spectra of gas-phase bioions. A considerable range of systems have been successfully characterised as part of the project ranging from DNA building block molecules, amino acids and adenosine triphosphate. In addition, we have demonstrated the utility of such measurements for characterising the molecular level process that occur between photoactive pharmaceutical molecules and key biomolecular building blocks. Finally, we have shown that the spectrometer can be employed to perform “dipole-bound excited state” spectroscopy of mixed-charge molecular systems.
