Organization, management and operation of contemporary academic mass spectrometry service facilities

The rapid evolution of mass spectrometry in the past 15 years has moved mas s spectrometry facilities from the traditional model in which instruments w ere located in and used for a single department's samples to a distributed model servicing entire universities. In this paper we describe two such sha red instrument facilities that have evolved from a base in a single departm ent to facilities that service a broad clientele. The Purdue University Cam pus-wide Mass Spectrometry Center (CWMSC) is a decentralized facility with multiple sites on campus. The CWMSC is a limited-access facility in which s amples are run by service facility personnel in close cooperation with inve stigators. The Vanderbilt University Mass Spectrometry Research Center (VU- MSRC) is a centralized facility in the medical school that provides service s to the university at large. The VU-MSRC is an open-access facility in whi ch users are expected to prepare and analyze their own samples under the gu idance of a trained operator. Perhaps the most significant benefit achieved by these models has been the minimization of academic barriers and the res ultant intellectual cross-fertilization that has greatly enriched research at institutions where this approach has been adopted. The advantages and li mitations of both models are discussed in terms of the traditional academic paradigm of service, research and education. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.