Development of a Portable Ion Mobility Spectrometer for Efficient Diagnosis of various diseases This research will focus on the identification of the biomarkers associated with various diseases and the development and validation of an innovative high-resolution ion mobility (IM) device. The proposed device is based on a new variant of Structures for Lossless Ion Manipulations (SLIM) and will couple high-resolution ion mobility separations achieved by traveling wave (TW)-SLIM with drift tube (DT)-SLIM which is a novel approach that can provide collision cross section (CCS) values of the separated isomers/conformers that are unique to the target biomarkers of interest. We expect this capability to increase biomarkers’ identification accuracy. In addition, by combining the attributes of the high-resolution ion mobility and ambient ionization, sensitive detection, and superior separation power will be achieved in the analysis of complex clinical samples without any prior sample preparation. The current diagnosis methods are often slow, expensive, or laborious which limits their use in resource-limited regions. Therefore, there is a strong unmet need for new technologies that can rapidly diagnose various diseases to complement the existing commercially available technologies. Rapid identification of diagnostic biomarkers in clinical samples will not only lead to an increase in recovery rates but also will lead to shorter hospitalization stays and reduced antibiotic resistance. We aim to develop a portable IM diagnostic device that can be used for the identification of the biomarkers associated with foodborne and Alzheimer’s diseases which significantly impact the lives of millions of people. The significance of these diseases causes diagnostic tests to play a major role in the clinical care of patients suffering from these diseases Our studies will enable high throughput analyses that are affordable and so easy-to-operate that can be performed by less-skilled users, such as nurses and their assistants. Over the long term, these studies will be extended to multiple applications that span from the fundamental studies of molecular structure elucidation to advanced analytical applications such as a widely usable point-of-care diagnostic device that can serve the community, especially resource-limited regions. 1