Ian Gilmore

Prof. Ian Gilmore is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and Senior Fellow at the National Physical Laboratory. He is also a Visiting Professor in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Nottingham and founding director of the UK’s National Centre of Excellence in Mass Spectrometry (NiCE-MSI). He has made breakthroughs in high-resolution molecular imaging by mass spectrometry. His innovation of OrbiSIMS technology has had a wide impact across research in biomedicine and novel devices, revolutionising the ability to measure chemistry at surfaces and interfaces. Now commercialised, OrbiSIMS are being used around the world, giving ground-breaking insights into how neighbouring cells regulate each other’s metabolism, to map metabolic heterogeneity in cancer tumours and next generation biomaterials discovery. His research interests also include 3D molecular imaging of complex interfaces in organic electronics, batteries and additive manufactured devices.

Ian has over 30 years’ experience in mass spectrometry of surfaces and has published more than 160 peer-reviewed papers. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and the American Vacuum Society. Ian is the recipient of the Alfred Benninghoven prize and medal (2024), ECASIA Award (2024), IUVSTA Prize and gold medal for Technology (2022), the UKSAF Riviere prize (2013) and the IoP Paterson medal (2004).

Ian leads international standardisation in surface chemical analysis and is chair of VAMAS TWA 2 and past chair of ISO TC 201 SC 6 (Mass Spectrometry). He is championing the topic of research integrity and reproducibility and is a member of the UK Committee on Research Integrity.

Selected recent research papers

1. The 3D OrbiSIMS—label-free metabolic imaging with subcellular lateral resolution and high mass resolving power, M Passarelli, A Pirkl, R Moellers, D Grinfeld, F Kollmer, R Havelund, C F Newman, P S Marshall, H Arlinghaus, M Alexander, A West, S Horning, E Niehuis, A Makarov, C Dollery, I Gilmore, Nature Methods 14 , 1175 2017 https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.4504​
2. Direct identification of interfacial degradation in blue OLEDs using nanoscale chemical depth profiling, G F Trindade, S Sul, J Kim, R Havelund, A Eyres, S Park, Y Shin, H Jin Bae, Y Mo Sung, L Matjacic, Y Jung, J Won, W Sung Jeon, H Choi, H Sug Lee, J-C Lee, J-H Kim & I S Gilmore, Nat Commun 14, 8066 2023. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-43840-9
3. Cryo-OrbiSIMS for 3D Molecular Imaging of a Bacterial Biofilm in Its Native State, J. Zhang, J.  Brown, D. J. Scurr, A. Bullen, K. MacLellan-Gibson, P. Williams, M. R. Alexander, K. R. Hardie, I. S. Gilmore, and P. D. Rakowska, Anal. Chem. 92, 9008 2020 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.0c01125
4. Cryogenic OrbiSIMS Localizes Semi-Volatile Molecules in Biological Tissues. C. L. Newell, J.-L. Vorng, J. I. MacRae, I. S. Gilmore, A. P. Gould, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 59, 18194 2020 https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202006881
5. The dietary sweetener sucralose is a negative modulator of T cell-mediated responses, F Zani, J Blagih, T Gruber, M D Buck, N Jones, M Hennequart, C L. Newell, S E. Pilley, P Soro-Barrio, G Kelly, N M. Legrave, E C. Cheung, I S. Gilmore, A P. Gould, C Garcia-Caceres & K H. Vousden., Nature 615, 705 2023 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-05801-6
6. Single-cell Analysis: Visualizing Pharmaceutical and Metabolite Uptake in Cells with Label-free 3D Mass Spectrometry Imaging, M Passarelli, CJ Newman, PS Marshall, A West, IS Gilmore, J Bunch, M Alexander, C T Dollery, Anal. Chem., 87 , 6696 2015 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.5b00842
7. Chemical intervention in plant sugar signalling increases yield and resilience, C A Griffiths, R Sagar, Y Geng, L F Primavesi, M K Patel, M K Passarelli, I S Gilmore, R T Steven, J Bunch, M J Paul, B G Davis, Nature 540 , 574  2016. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature20591
8. High-resolution sub-cellular imaging by correlative NanoSIMS and electron microscopy of amiodarone internalisation by lung macrophages as the evidence for drug-induced phospholipidosis. H Jiang, M Passarelli, P Munro, M Kilburn, A West, C Dollery, I Gilmore, P Rakowska, Chem Comm. 53, 1506 2017. https://doi.org/10.1039/C6CC08549K
9. Intracellular Drug Uptake: A Comparison of Single Cell Measurements Using ToF-SIMS Imaging and Quantification from Cell Populations with LC/MS/MS, C Newman, R Havelund, M Passarelli, P Marshall, I Francis, A West, M Alexander, I Gilmore, C Dollery, Anal. chemistry 89, 11944 2017 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.7b01436
10. OrbiSIMS metrology Part I: Optimisation of the target potential and collision cell pressure, L Matjacic, M P Seah, G F Trindade, A Pirkl, R Havelund, J-L Vorng, E Niehuis, I S Gilmore, Surf Interface Anal. 54, 331-340 2022 . https://doi.org/10.1002/sia.7058

Selected recent reviews and teaching material

1. Surface analysis: The principal techniques, Eds J.C.Vickerman and I. S. Gilmore, Second Edition, Wiley (2011) https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470721582
2. Metabolic imaging at the single-cell scale: recent advances in mass spectrometry imaging, Ian S Gilmore, Sven Heiles, Cornelius L Pieterse, Annual Rev. Anal. Chem. 12, 201 2019. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anchem-061318-115516
3. Antiviral surfaces and coatings and their mechanisms of action, P. D. Rakowska, M. Tiddia, N. Faruqui, C. Bankier, Y. Pei, A. J. Pollard, J. Zhang & I. S. Gilmore,  Commun Mater 2, 53 2021. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43246-021-00153-y
4. Responding to the growing issue of research reproducibility, D. R. Baer and I. S. Gilmore, J. Vac. Sci. Tech. A 36, 068502 2018. https://doi.org/10.1116/1.5049141
5. Improving Reproducibility in Research: The Role of Measurement Science, R. J. Hanisch, I. S Gilmore, A. L. Plant, J. Res. NIST 124, 1 2019. https://doi.org/10.6028/jres.124.024
6. Metrology is key to reproducing results”, M Sene, I Gilmore, JT Janssen, Nature 547, 397, 2017 https://doi.org/10.1038/547397a

For all publications see:

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