The Macromolecular Ion Physics group targets the development and application of state-of-the art mass spectrometry based molecular imaging approaches. The Heeren group is currently one of the world leaders in high resolution molecular imaging of biological surfaces. This leading position has been realized through a concerted research effort on three topics:

1. The fundamental physics of desorption and ionization of large biomolecules
2. The development of innovative instruments and methods for the generation of ultrahigh resolution molecular images.
3. The development and application of mass spectrometry based molecular imaging to molecular histology for nanomedicine and biomedical research.

The research is carried out in collaboration with a number of partners in academia, (inter-)national medical institutions and industry. These collaborative projects ensure a strong embedding of the outcome of our research effort in society.

The AMOLF Mass Microscope
Photon and particle based direct ion imaging mass spectrometry is employed to break limits in spatial resolution and analysis speed in biomedical research. The AMOLF ion microscope sees lipids, peptides and proteins inside tissue sections with 600 nm pixel sizes.
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FTICR-MS imaging
Fourier Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance Mass Spectrometry (FTICR-MS) currently offers the highest possible mass resolution. This provides insight in new spatial structures that remain unresolved with low mass resolution molecular imaging methodologies.
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Ion Mobility based molecular imaging
Biomolecular ions can be separated based on their gas-phase collision cross-section using ion mobility spectrometry. At AMOLF we utilize this approach to elucidate new spatial structures of nominally isobaric species in imaging mass spectrometry.
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Virtual Laboratory for e-science
Science is becoming more and more interdisciplinary. In the virtual laboratory for e-science we bring together these geographically distributed scientific resources such as experimental data, processing tools and computational resources to enhance science to the next level.
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Imaging Proteomics: On-tissue enzymatic digestions for direct protein identification
Imagine the entire proteome: All proteins expressed by a living system. Enzymatic digestion is used to explore the cellular proteome and its response to environmental changes directly in histological tissue sections.
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Nanomedicine: molecular histology of nanoparticle based drugs
Innovative, targeted drug delivery and image contrast enhancement agents are developed in the European integrated project. The physicochemical characteristics of selected nanocarriers loaded with biologically active compounds are studied in detail with complementary imaging techniques
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Computis: Molecular Imaging with Mass Spectrometry
A European consortium combining academic and industrial research is advancing imaging mass spectrometry and image interpretation. New avenues in molecular imaging are explored.
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Molecular histology with imaging Mass Spectrometry 
The application of molecular imaging with mass spectrometry to molecular histology is one of the breakthrough technologies in modern biomedical research. At AMOLF this technology is employed for the study of various diseases and treatments.
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