BEAMS: a workforce development program to bridge the gap between biologists and material scientists.

To maximize innovation in materials science and synthetic biology, it is critical to master interdisciplinary understanding and communication within an organization. Programming aimed at this juncture has the potential to bring members of the workforce together to frame new networks and spark collaboration. In this article, we recognize the potential synergy between materials and synthetic biology research and describe our approach to this challenge as a case study.

Accurate Evaluation of Potential Calibration Standards for Ion Mobility Spectrometry.

Ion mobility spectrometry (IMS)-based instruments have historically been accurate to, at best, ±2% of the reduced ion mobility () value of the chemical of interest. Fielded IMS-based detectors that are in use for hazardous and illicit substance detection are subject to false-positive alarms because of this inaccuracy and the resulting wide alarm windows, which are required to maintain a high rate of true-positive alarms. To reduce false-positive alarm rates and improve the accuracy of any IMS-based instrument, accurate values of an ion mobility reference standard need to be used for ion mobility scale calibration.