Assistant Professor Dominic McBrayer explores a prediction model for amino acid and peptide fragments with students and alumni

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Dominic McBrayer recently co-authored an article with several alumni and current undergraduate co-authors published in February 2024 for the peer-reviewed scientific journal PLOS ONE, from the Public Library of Science.

With graduating senior Irtiza Bhatti ‘24 (Biochemistry) and School of Science & Engineering alumni Christina Signoretti ‘20, Matthew Pesce ‘22, Brianna M. Flood ‘22, Sneha Varghese ‘21, Fares Sirdah ‘22, Elena Toscano ‘21, and Shahadat Hossain ‘22, McBrayer explored the “Development of a Python-based electron ionization mass spectrometry amino acid and peptide fragment prediction model,” seeking to address challenges in analyzing peptides using a widely available analysis method.

Commonly used in health products for muscle-building, anti-inflammatory conditions and the aging process, peptides are smaller versions of proteins.

Electron-ionization mass spectrometry (EI-MS) breaks the sample peptides into small pieces whose origin can be difficult to determine since peptides all share the same amino acids as their building blocks.

The faculty-alumni research is a continuation of McBrayer’s extensive research with undergraduate students in peptide fragmentation and electron ionization mass spectrometry, with a specific focus on developing Python-based computer programs to help practice and learn chemistry concepts.

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