2010 Recipient: Marvin L. Vestal

 

The different components of a mass spectrometer need to be carefully integrated for optimum design and performance. The focused efforts of Marvin L. Vestal on the development of practical MALDI-TOF and TOF-TOF mass spectrometers culminated in the first commercial MALDI-TOF instrumentation – the Voyager series. More than one half of MALDI-TOF instruments in use are based on Dr. Vestal’s designs. A significant accomplishment of his work is the development of a comprehensive theoretical model for the various components of a TOF analyzer with a view toward optimizing performance of a complete system for particular applications. Dr. Vestal implemented this theoretical approach to design a family of MALDI-TOF instruments that employed delayed extraction, and through further refinements, the construction of a tandem time-of-flight instrument introduced commercially as the 4700 Proteome Analyzer and later the 4800 TOF-TOF by Applied Biosystems. Advances in related technology have been combined with Dr. Vestal’s theoretical predictions to provide MALDI-TOF MS and MS-MS systems that out-perform earlier instruments by orders of magnitude. The MALDI-TOF MS and MS-MS systems designed by Dr. Vestal have had and are continuing to have an enormously positive impact on many important areas of research, including proteomics, glycomics, cell signaling, structural biology, tissue imaging, and polymer science.

Dr. Marvin L. Vestal is Founder, CEO, and CSO of Virgin Instruments.