Fundamentals of Mass Spectrometry

Content: General Principles

• Terminology
• Isotopic Patterns
• Properties of a Mass Spectrometer (Resolution, Sensitivity, Accuracy)
• Molecular Properties of the Substances to be Analyzed

Content: Instrumental setup of a mass spectrometer and its applications

• Explanation of the most common ionization methods (EI, ESI, APCI, and MALDI) 
• Structure and function of various mass analyzers (e.g., Q-, IT-, ToF-, Orbitrap, and FTICR mass spectrometers) 
• Structure and function of detectors 
• Comparison of different mass analyzers for various applications

Content: Tandem Mass Spectrometry and Structural Analysis

• Setup and use of various tandem mass spectrometers (QqQ, QqToF)
• Initial fragmentation and structure elucidation

Content: Typical mass spectrometric applications

• Calculation of molecular weight 
• Scanning techniques (Target, Suspects, NTS) 
• Quantification with external and internal standards 
• Working with databases 
• Typical interference signals

Your top speaker: PD Dr. Thomas Letzel

PD Dr. Thomas Letzel was trained as a chemical laboratory technician, has studied chemistry in Munich and worked on his Ph.D. thesis in the field of environmental analysis at the Technical University of Munich. After a post-doctoral stay in pharmaceutical analysis at the VU Amsterdam, he was head of the analytical and biochemical research group (AFG) at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) from 2003 to 2018 and held a teaching professorship in pharmaceutical analysis at the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich from 2014 to 2017.
Since 2018 he is also one of the executive directors at the start-up company ‘Analytisches Forschungsinstitut fuer Non-Target Screening’ (AFIN-TS GmbH). In AFIN-TS he continues basic and advanced research in analytical chemistry and simultaneously consults, supports and teaches common instrumental analysis, such as LC-MS, GC-MS, etc., as well as HILIC, RPLC-HILIC, SFC, and non-target screening solutions (also for commercial partners). In the past 30 years, he has devoted himself to teaching and imparting knowledge about chromatographic and mass spectrometric analysis, as well as applications in various research areas, such as environmental and food analysis, as well as pharmaceutical analysis and bioanalytics.
So far, he has published 88 peer-reviewed research articles, 27 review articles, six books and more than 95 articles in ‚on-the-bench‘ journals. With www.chemnixblog.de, www.analyticsplus.org and others he actively operates educational online platforms.