Skip to content. Skip to main navigation.
Found in everything from space shuttles to dental fillings, composite materials have thoroughly infiltrated modern society. But their potential is still greatly untapped, offering researchers ample opportunity for discovery.
Within the particle showers created at the Large Hadron Collider, answers to some of the universe’s mysteries are waiting.
Model systems like pigeons can help illuminate our own evolutionary and genomic history.
UT Arlington's tiny windmills are bringing renewable energy to a whole new scale.
The stability of our highways, pipelines, and even manholes is reaching a breaking point.
Scientists believe they have discovered a subatomic particle that is crucial to understanding the universe.
UT Arlington researchers unlock clues to the human body’s most mysterious and complex organ.
UT Arlington researchers probe the hidden world of microbes in search of renewable energy sources.
Wounded soldiers are benefiting from Robert Gatchel’s program that combines physical rehabilitation with treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.
Tiny sensors implanted in the body show promise in combating acid reflux disease, pain and other health problems.
Nanotechnology researchers pursue hybrid silicon chips with life-saving potential.
Biomedical engineers combat diseases with procedures that are painless to patients.
Daniel W. Armstrong
Sports at their highest levels have been rocked in recent years by revelations of performance-enhancing drug use by top athletes. But catching potential rule-breakers may soon become easier, thanks to a new test developed by UT Arlington chemists.
Daniel W. Armstrong, the Robert A. Welch Chair in Chemistry, and Hongyue Guo, a graduate student in his lab, made headlines last year when they announced a test to detect evidence of performance-enhancing metabolites that is up to 1,000 times more sensitive than current methods.
The new strategy is a variation on a common testing technique called mass spectrometry, which the International Olympic Committee and the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency routinely use to ensure athletes are clean. Mass spectrometry separates compounds by mass, allowing scientists to determine the component parts of a mixture. However, since metabolites are small and have a negative charge, they may not produce a signal strong enough for the instrument to detect.
The method Dr. Armstrong’s lab has pioneered, paired ion electrospray ionization, helps boost that signal by gathering several of the performance-enhancing metabolites in the sample together, thus making them more obvious to the detector.
“How much of a drug someone took or how long ago they took it are beyond the analyst’s control,” Armstrong explains. “The only thing you can control is how sensitive your method is, and we may have developed one of the most sensitive in the world.”
Engineer harnessing high-power source to fuel everything from cellphones to military ships
Does an overlooked class of stars have the potential to host life? How can we prevent solar weather from wreaking havoc on Earth? Do exomoons really exist? These are just a few of the questions UTA physicists are asking as they attempt to uncover the secrets of the universe.
