Gross receives 2020 ASMS John B. Fenn Award

The award recognizes distinguished contributions to mass spectrometry.

Michael L. Gross, professor of chemistry in Arts & Sciences and of immunology and internal medicine in the School of Medicine, has received this year’s John B. Fenn Award for a Distinguished Contribution in Mass Spectrometry. The award from the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) honors Gross’s innovations in mass spectrometry-based footprinting for structural proteomics.

Gross’s approach to footprinting — fast photochemical oxidation of proteins (FPOP) — makes use of certain characteristics of proteins to enable reactions on the microsecond time scale. By integrating FPOP with other protein chemistry methods, Gross and his collaborators study the structure of proteins with biomedical significance to support new protein therapeutics and drug discovery.

The Fenn Award will be conferred at ASMS’s annual conference and includes the presentation of a $10,000 award and recognition plaque as well as a lecture by Gross.