We offer mass spectrometry services to the BU community, other institutions, and the private sector at competitive rates. Please contact us for details.

The CIC houses seven mass spectrometers: five LC/MS, one GC-MS and one MALDI-TOF. Most of the instruments are available for open access operation after training. Please contact the CIC for training. All instrumentation are available for both research and teaching.

Additional information is available as a PDF Brochure.


The Agilent Single-Quad LC/MSD VL is an open access single-quad low resolution (1 decimal place) instrument capable of in both ESI positive and negative modes up to 1500 m/z. Method types available are flow injection analysis (FIA – no column) and liquid chromatography (LC – C18 column) mass spectrometry. Solvents are Water and Acetonitrile spiked with 0.1% formic acid. Training sessions are available. Please contact us.

The Agilent GC-MS 6890N is a gas chromatography instrument equipped with a MS detector up to 800 m/z. The ionization is electron impact (EI) and software is ChemStation. This instrument is equipped with a 100 vial sample tray and is used both for teaching and research.

The Bruker autoflex Speed is a MALDI-TOF mass spectrometer equipped with a SMART-beam II and a flash detector. Software packages include BioTools, PolyTools and fleximaging. The instrument is supported by NSF CHE-1337811.

The Thermo Scientific LTQ XL ETD is a linear trap equipped with an additional ETD mass spectrometer. This instrument is well-suited for metabolomics and proteomics projects.

The Thermo Scientific LTQ-FT-ICR is a 7 T Fourier-Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance mass spectrometer. On the front-end, is a linear ion trap that can run alone or accumulates ions for ultra high resolution analysis in the ICR cell. The FT-ICR provides ultra high resolution and high mass accuracy for ions within complex samples (<1 ppm). This instrument is well-suited for metabolomics and proteomics projects.

The Waters QTof Premier is a quadrupole – time of flight hydrid high resolution (4 decimal places) system capable of both positive and negative modes up to 8,000 m/z. Please consult with QTof sample submission guidelines before submission. Tandem MS/MS is also available, please contact us if you would like to invite us to participate in your project.