Vanderbilt University has received a $10.3 million grant from the National Center for Research Resources to create a National Research Resource for Imaging Mass Spectrometry.

Richard Caprioli, director of Vanderbilt's Mass Spectrometry Research Center, is leading the program.

The Reporter has the story, including a good answer to the question you're asking yourself right now:

Imaging mass spectrometry is a tool for visualizing the location of proteins in cells and tissues. It can be used to “follow” the molecular changes that cause disease, which is “vital to our understanding of how to treat a patient to stabilize, reverse and even eliminate disease processes,” said Caprioli, the Stanley Cohen Professor of Biochemistry and professor of Chemistry, Medicine and Pharmacology.

Caprioli has pioneered imaging mass spectrometry techniques and expects the new Research Resource to move this technology from the instrumental development laboratory to the biological and clinical research laboratory as a routine imaging tool.

“Imaging mass spectrometry gives the research scientist and the physician a new and unprecedented view of the molecular changes underlying disease processes,” Caprioli said.

In the context of an impending federal budget gouge for the National Institutes of Health, Med City News looks at "who has the most to lose," by ranking the top 100 institutions and top states for NIH grants in 2010.

Vanderbilt University ranked 15th at $374 million. The top NIH recipient was Johns Hopkins at $686 million. Tennessee was 13th among states at $558 million. (Thanks, Vandy.)