Ferreira said sample preparation for traditional LC-MS\/MS analysis requires several steps including mixing, centrifuging, transferring and drying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat destroys the sample and throws away spatial information about where a chemical was found in the sample,\u201d she said. \u201cAlso, if scientists want to spatially analyze an irregular surface such as a piece of liver tissue or a fish fillet, they must section it and make it flat to be able to extract the chemicals before the analysis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Research team members are Devender Arora<\/a> and Venkatesh Thirumalaikumar<\/a> from Bindley Bioscience Center; Jesus Ladino, an Undergraduate Research Experience Purdue-Colombia (UREP-C) visiting scholar at Bindley Bioscience Center; and Weicang Wang<\/a> from the College of Agriculture<\/a>. Students in the Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering<\/a> professional master\u2019s program helped develop the imaging processing and control unit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ferreira disclosed the STEi innovation to the Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization<\/a>, which applied for a patent to protect the intellectual property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Industry partners interested in developing or commercializing STEi should contact Dipak Narula, lead technology development liaison and assistant director of business development and licensing \u2014 physical sciences, at dnarula@prf.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n \u201cThe STEi concept workflow essentially allows the user to load a sample, press \u2018Run\u2019 and create a spatially resolved chemical portrait of their sample based on an instrumentation input, without ever having to cut, grind or destroy it,\u201d Ferreira said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The workflow begins with the user placing an intact, unprocessed sample such as a tissue biopsy, food item or piece of packaging on the instrument stage. No flattening or grinding is required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The instrument\u2019s integrated camera\/imaging module scans the sample\u2019s surface. Software computes a path across the surface to determine where the extraction probe should touch and in what sequence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A fine probe tip descends into each programming point on the surface, making contact between the sample and the solvent, which could be water, acetonitrile or a mixture. The force\/pressure sensor ensures the probe makes consistent, controlled contact regardless of surface shape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ferreira said the pressure-controlled probe\u2019s ability to sample uneven surfaces is a critical differentiator over flat-surface methods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The software then registers the molecular data back to the original surface coordinates, generating spatial heat maps showing where specific lipids, contaminants, proteins or metabolites are concentrated across the sample.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ferreira said STEi improves upon traditional workflow several ways:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ferreira said STEi\u2019s applications begin with food safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe technology was designed to detect contaminants on food surfaces and packaging, and food quality and lipid profiling, such as cattle-breed lipid fingerprinting,\u201d she said. \u201cIt also could be used to monitor food spoilage by repeated nondestructive sampling of fresh produce, poultry, dairy and fish over time to track molecular changes. That\u2019s a capability gap, not just an improvement on existing methods.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other applications of the STEi technology are drug development and the life sciences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn the preclinical toxicology arena, STEi coupled to mass spectrometry tools could map the metabolic impact of drugs, chemicals and proteins across liver, kidney, brain and intestinal tissues from animal models,\u201d she said. \u201cIt would show tissue-specific accumulation patterns and also sample proteins as these can be extracted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ferreira and the research team are looking for partners to test STEi across several applications. The team is evaluating the recovery of lipids and proteins using different probe configurations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Besides lipids, they have recovered about 2,000 different proteins from bovine muscle using manual STEi, Thirumalaikumar said. The proteins were functionally classified across contractile, metabolic, antioxidant and structural categories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ferreira and the research team received funding from Purdue Innovates\u2019 Trask Innovation Fund<\/a> to develop STEi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ferreira said the team is seeking partners to work on hardware optimization; software integration for 3D path planning; and running more validation experiments including food spoilage monitoring, food packaging contamination detection and additional toxicology applications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe also will explore regulatory alignment with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency analytical frameworks for selected applications,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization<\/a> operates one of the most comprehensive technology transfer programs among leading research universities in the U.S. Services provided by this office support the economic development initiatives of Purdue University and benefit the university\u2019s academic activities through commercializing, licensing and protecting Purdue intellectual property. In fiscal year 2025, the office reported 161 deals executed with 269 technologies licensed, 479 invention disclosures received, and 267 U.S. and international patents received. The office is managed by the Purdue Research Foundation, a private, nonprofit foundation created to advance the mission of Purdue University. Contact otcip@prf.org<\/a> for more information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Purdue University is a research institution ranked among the top 10 public universities in the United States. More than 106,000 students study at Purdue across multiple campuses, including more than 57,000 at our main campus locations in West Lafayette and Indianapolis. As a land-grant university committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue\u2019s main campus has frozen tuition 14 years in a row, enabling more students than ever to graduate debt-free.<\/p>\n\n\n![\"Three](\"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/hilger-pipetteillustration.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
How STEi works<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
STEi benefits<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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STEi applications<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Funding milestones and next development steps<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
About Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
About Purdue University<\/h2>\n\n\n\n