Part 1: George Stafford’s early years in Mass Spectrometry

During 1973, as an undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond, Virginia), George C. Stafford, Jr. was working on his final year project trying to determine the structure of an unknown compound produced by a photosynthetic reaction. Fascinated by instrumentation at an early age, Stafford was considering adopting nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy as his field of research. However, NMR did not provide the complete answer Stafford was looking for. Without finding the mass of the compound, he could not make much progress in determining the structure of the compound.

After graduating with a B.S. degree in Chemistry, Stafford was admitted to the Ph.D. program at the University of Virginia (Charlottesville, Virginia). Under the guidance of Professor Donald F. Hunt, he decided to use mass spectrometry in addition to NMR to decipher the unknowns in the field of Chemistry. Meeting Professor Hunt was the first turning point in his career.

Professor Hunt was a positive influence on Stafford during this period. He instilled in Stafford the importance and excitement of discovering new things. Inquisitive to figure out and use the fundamental property of mass, Stafford decided to take the plunge into Mass Spectrometry. Professor Hunt had convinced him that mass spectrometry was a powerful tool and that it could perform a variety of analyses. In addition, the interdisciplinary nature of Mass Spectrometry that integrated fields ranging from chemistry, physics, electronics, and mechanical engineering design was particularly compelling.

While working in Professor Hunt’s lab, Stafford attended his first American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) conference in Houston during the spring of 1975. This was his first contact with the industry. He used this opportunity to meet with various experts from the industry, several from Finnigan Corporation (now part of Thermo Fisher Scientific). Stafford was impressed by the expertise Finnigan had in inventing and developing new products in the field of mass spectrometry. The company had had a strong relationship with academia and this collaboration played a vital function in many fundamental developments in the field of mass spectrometry. ASMS 1976 in San Diego proved to be the second turning point in his career. Meeting Michael Story who was Director of Research and Product Development at Finnigan was instrumental in this turning point. Story impressed in him the role played by the industry in contributing to the field of mass spectrometry. After graduating with a Ph.D. in Chemistry in 1977, Dr. Stafford joined Finnigan as a research scientist.

Dr. Stafford’s initial work was on developing ion sources and ion detectors for gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. During this time he was responsible for developing new technology and hardware to improve quadrupole mass spectrometry. He was part of the team developing negative ion detection technology, improved chemical ionization and electron ionization hardware for the 4000 single quadrupole mass spectrometer.

Dr. Stafford became interested in ion trap mass spectrometry first during the 1979 ASMS Conference in Seattle, Washington when he attended a talk by Professor Ray March. Returning to Sunnyvale, California, he spent a summer working with John Syka constructing an ion trap mass spectrometer and later first operated the ion trap using the mass selective ejection scan. This scan was the birth of commercial ion trap technology.

Part 2: George Stafford and 25 years of Ion Traps

To be continued…

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