The arsenal of advanced spectroscopic techniques in the gas phase is able to reveal the intrinsic properties of a molecular system (structure, dynamics...) at a unique level of detail, provided that it is prepared in cold, isolated conditions. The VAPOBIO project aims at developing a new vaporization technique based on a supercritical fluid (CO2) capable to produce such cold isolated neutral species for spectroscopic analysis, and then applying it to non-volatile biomolecular systems. Two vaporization sources, one continuous and one pulsed, will be built to study these systems by ionization-based spectroscopies and supercritical fluid chromatography. Applications in basic research are targeted along three scientific axes: A. The analysis of complex mixtures like extracts of natural products; B. The detailed structural characterization of biopolymers (peptides, sugars) isolated, or in supramolecular assemblies; C. Photophysical processes such as photofragmentation and ultrafast dynamics of selected biomolecular systems. The vaporization sources developed in this project will enable the combination of supercritical fluid chromatography with gas phase advanced spectroscopies, thus creating a powerful analytical tool potentially able to trigger several breakthroughs beyond the scientific fields directly targeted by this project.

This project is lead by LIDYL (Eric GLOAGUEN) in partnership with ICSN (David TOUBOUL), synchrotron SOLEIL (beamline DESIRS, Laurent Nahon) and ISMO (Pierre Çarçabal), and is funded by  ANR (project VAPOBIO ANR-20-CE29-0016)