To better understand diseases, scientists need to gain a far more detailed picture of cell function and how individual proteins interact and respond to various stimuli. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health is specifically interested in defining the function of genes relevant to cardiovascular function and has awarded $15 million to a team led by the Medical College of Wisconsin and including Oak Ridge National Laboratory. ORNL's task is to develop a technique to perform exhaustive biochemical analyses of single cells with particular emphasis on proteins. ORNL is to receive about $4 million over seven years to develop microfluidic devices to extract the full complement of proteins from single cells, isolate individual proteins and introduce them into the gas phase so a mass spectrometer can perform structural analysis on them. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin are developing a mass spectrometer capable of the sensitivity needed to characterize individual proteins.