Keynote Speakers
Lingjun Li, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Dr. Lingjun Li is a Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor and the Charles Melbourne Johnson Distinguished Chair Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison). Dr. Li received her Ph.D. degree in Analytical Chemistry/Biomolecular Chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2000. She then did joint postdoctoral research at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Brandeis University before joining the faculty at UW-Madison in December 2002. Dr. Li’s research interests include the development of novel mass spectrometry (MS)-based tools such as new isotopic and isobaric labeling strategies that enable hyperplexing for quantitative proteomics, peptidomics, and glycomics, and their applications in neuroscience and cancer research. She and her team also develop microscale separations, in vivo microdialysis and imaging MS tools for functional discovery of neuropeptides in model organisms and (glyco)protein biomarkers in neurodegenerative diseases with a strong focus on Alzheimer’s disease. Her lab also explores novel use of ion mobility MS to address technical challenges in peptidomic research. Professor Li has established a highly productive research program and published more than 300 peer-reviewed research journal papers (with H-index of 61, and more than 13,361 citations) and has given more than 250 invited talks. Dr. Li is passionate about training next generation of scientists, and has successfully trained and graduated 56 PhDs and is currently training 25 PhD graduate students, 4 postdoctoral scientists, and 8 undergraduate students. Dr. Li has been recognized with numerous awards, including ASMS Research Award, NSF CAREER Award, Sloan Fellowship, PittCon Achievement Award, and ASMS Biemann Medal, and was named one of the Top 50 most influential women in the analytical sciences in 2016 and was recently featured in the 2019 and 2021 Top 100 Power List by the Analytical Scientist (on a global scale). Dr. Li is currently serving as an Associate Editor for the Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (JASMS) and sitting on the Advisory Board for Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry and Mass Spectrometry Reviews. She is a member of the Board of Directors for the US Human Proteome Organization (US HUPO).
Andrew Lane, University of Kentucky
Dr. Andrew Lane has over thirty years of experience in the application and development of NMR methods for macromolecular NMR and probing metabolism, especially related to human cancers. His background is in enzymology, biochemistry and biophysics and he has an interest in the functional and physical properties of macromolecules, their interactions and dynamics, as well as the dynamics of metabolic networks. He is Co-Director of the Center Environmental Systems Biochemistry (CESB) at the University of Kentucky, which is responsible for developing and applying new methods in metabolic studies. His training in biochemistry, enzyme kinetics and NMR is particularly appropriate for designing stable isotope resolved metabolomics (SIRM) experiments, their execution and biological interpretation of results. With Drs. Teresa Fan and Richard Higashi of CESB, he has been developing the stable isotope tracer approach for cancer metabolomics, and applying directly to human subjects and to different models including fresh tissue slices for the last twenty years.
Invited Speakers
Benjamin Garcia, Washington University in St. Louis
Dr. Benjamin A. Garcia obtained his BS in Chemistry at UC Davis in 2000, where he worked as an undergraduate researcher in Prof. Carlito Lebrilla’s laboratory. He received his PhD in Chemistry in 2005 at the University of Virginia under Prof. Donald Hunt and then was an NIH NRSA Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Illinois under Prof. Neil Kelleher from 2005-2008. From there Ben was appointed as an Assistant Professor in the Molecular Biology Department at Princeton University from 2008-2012, until his recruitment as the Presidential Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in 2012, promoted to full Professor in 2016, and named the John McCrea Dickson M.D. Presidential Professor in 2017. Ben moved in the summer of 2021 to the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis to become the Chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics. The Garcia lab has been developing and applying novel proteomic approaches and bioinformatics for interrogating protein modifications, especially those involved in epigenetic mechanisms such as histones during human disease, publishing over 375 publications. He is presently an Associate Editor of the Analytical Chemistry, and Mass Spectrometry Reviews journals; and serves on the editorial boards for the Molecular Omics, the Journal of Proteome Research and the Molecular and Cellular Proteomics journals. He also serves on the Board of Directors for the U.S. Human Proteome Organization (HUPO), the HUPO Governing Council/Executive Committee and the Executive Committee of the American Chemical Society (ACS) Analytical Chemistry Division. Ben has been recognized with many honors and awards for his mass spectrometry research including the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) Research Award, a National Science Foundation CAREER award, an NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, the PITTCON Achievement Award, the Ken Standing Award, the ACS Arthur F. Findeis Award, The Protein Society Young Investigator Award, the ASMS Biemann Medal, the HUPO Discovery in Proteomic Sciences Award, and was named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Emanuela Gionfriddo, University of Toledo
Dr. Emanuela Gionfriddo is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry of The University of Toledo (OH, USA). Research work in Dr. Gionfriddo’s lab focuses on developing advanced analytical separation tools for the analysis of complex biological and environmental samples using alternative green extraction methodologies. She received her Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry (2013) at the University of Calabria (Italy). She joined Prof. Pawliszyn’s group at the University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada) in 2014 as a Post-Doctoral Fellow and manager of the Gas-Chromatography section of the Industrially Focused Analytical Research Laboratory (InFAReL), and within three years became a Research Associate. Dr. Gionfriddo has currently authored over 50 peer-reviewed contributions including a patent on PTFE-based SPME coatings. Dr. Gionfriddo is one of the founding members of the Dr. Nina McClelland Laboratory for Water Chemistry and Environmental Analysis at The University of Toledo and she is appointed to the Ohio Attorney General Yost’s Environmental Council of Advisors. Dr. Gionfriddo is the 2022 recipient of the ACS Analytical Division Satinder Ahuja Award for Young Investigators in Separation Science. She also serves as the Secretary of the ACS Analytical Chemistry Subdivision on Chromatography and Separation Chemistry. Her research program is currently funded by the National Science Foundation through the 2022 CAREER Award, by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and several industrial partnerships.
Rachel Kopec, The Ohio State University
Dr. Rachel Kopec received her Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in 2012, followed by post-doctoral training at AgreenSkills, INRA. She joined Ohio State as an assistant professor in Autumn 2016 under the Discovery Themes Initiative “Foods for Health and Metabolomics.” Her lab uses model systems (foods and food processing, Caco-2 intestinal cells, animals) and actual humans in combination with analytical chemistry tools (LC-PDA, LC-MS/MS, untargeted metabolomics) to decipher nutrient/nutrient and nutrient-bioactive interactions. Her group focuses on the interactions that occur with fat-soluble vitamins and phytochemicals (i.e. omega-3 fatty acids, carotenoids, chlorophylls). Because the currently available metabolomics tools provide a lot of data with limited interpretability (i.e. limited ability to “make meaning” from the data), her group also collaborates to develop new tools to aid in the identification of unknown metabolites, and to integrate multi “omic” platforms (to leverage knowledge about genes and microorganisms growing in/on human bodies with known shifts in metabolism inside the body).
Laura-Isobel McCall, University of Oklahoma
Dr. Laura-Isobel McCall received her Ph.D. from McGill University, followed by post-doctoral training at University of California San Francisco and University of California San Diego. The McCall laboratory uses cutting-edge analytical chemistry instrumentation to answer critical biological questions. Their main approach implements state-of-the-art ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS). High-resolution MS/MS data is then analyzed using big data computational tools and novel metabolomics techniques such as molecular networking and fragmentation trees. They are particularly interested in understanding how small molecule spatial distribution relates to function, by integrating 3D modeling with our mass spectrometry data, an approach called “chemical cartography”. Alterations in chemical signaling and metabolism play key roles in disease progression and susceptibility. Small molecules also mediate the function of the microbiome, and human interactions with the environment. Their unique chemical cartography approach enables us to understand metabolism in its spatial context, providing us with novel insights into human physiology, host-microbe and microbe-microbe interactions, microbiome function, and human behavior. They also pursue translational applications of their work, using insights from our metabolomics datasets to create new diagnostic tests and to identify new targets for drug development.
Jessica Prenni, Colorado State University
Dr. Jessica Prenni received her Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Colorado, Boulder followed by post-doctoral training at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA. She has over 20 years of experience in biological mass spectrometry and served for over ten years at the Director of the Proteomics and Metabolomics Core Facility at Colorado State University (CSU). During this time, her group developed novel approaches in metabolomics for analytical methods and data analysis including the RAMClustR algorithm for metabolite clustering and annotation. Presently, Dr. Prenni is a Professor in the Department of Horticulture at CSU where the overall theme of her research is the application of mass spectrometry to address important issues in food safety and quality. Current projects are focused on the use of mass spectrometry to (1) dissect complex genotype by environment (GxE) interactions, including the microbiome, in plant and animal systems (2) develop novel approaches using ambient ionization for characterization of food quality and authenticity (3) perform sensitive and rapid quantification of drug and chemical residues in food products (4) develop novel methods for metabolomics sample preparation, data acquisition, and informatics. Dr. Prenni has authored over 110 peer reviewed publications and is an active member of the mass spectrometry community.
Brian Searle, The Ohio State University
Dr. Brian Searle is an Assistant Professor at the Ohio State University Medical Center in the Department of Biomedical Informatics and a member of the Pelotonia Institute for Immuno-Oncology (PIIO). Brian received his chemistry BA at Reed College in 2001. In 2004, he co-founded Proteome Software with Mark Turner and Dr. Ashley McCormack to produce and distribute cutting-edge data analysis software for proteomicists. In 2014, he returned to academia to earn his PhD with Dr. Michael MacCoss at University of Washington, where he developed methods to detect and quantify proteins and phosphosites using mass spectrometry. His lab at PIIO spans the intersection of proteomics, mass spectrometry, bioinformatics, and technology development to study human genetic variation in the backdrop of cancer.
Lunch and Learn Speakers
Brandon Ruotolo, University of Michigan (sponsored by Agilent)
Dr. Brandon Ruotolo is currently Professor and Associate Chair for Research in the Department of Chemistry, University of Michigan. Ruotolo is also the faculty director of the UM Biological Mass Spectrometry Facility, and a faculty affiliate for both UM Biological Chemistry and the Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics Program. He earned his B.S. in Chemistry from Saint Louis University in 1999, and his Ph.D. from Texas A&M University in 2004 under the direction of David H. Russell. He did his post-doctoral work at the University of Cambridge with Dame Carol V. Robinson and was awarded the inaugural Waters Research Fellowship in 2008. Brandon moved to the University of Michigan in 2009, where he began his independent career. The Ruotolo research group at the University of Michigan seeks to enable breakthroughs in structural biology and drug discovery by leveraging the potential of ion mobility-mass spectrometry (IM-MS) for the comprehensive, 3D structural analysis of the proteome. To this end, Ruotolo and his team have studied the role of solvation on biomolecular structure, introduced collision induced unfolding (CIU) – a new fingerprinting technology capable of detecting the structural state of protein-ligand complexes and biotherapeutics, developed software packages for the enhanced interpretation and throughput of IM-MS and CIU data, and investigated the structural consequences of small molecule drug-like compounds on amyloid-related peptides. Ruotolo’s work has resulted in ca. 140 peer-reviewed publications and many awards, including: the Eli Lilly Award in Analytical Chemistry, the NSF CAREER award, the ASMS Research Award, the Protein Science Young Investigator Award, and the Agilent Thought Leader Award.
Artem Filipenko and Savannah Snyder, Bruker (sponsored by Bruker)
Dr. Artem Filipenko has over 15 years of industry experience in development of innovative methods and instrumentation for various analytical applications, including food, environmental, industrial, and homeland security. His area of professional expertise ranges from ion mobility, mass spectrometry, and gamma spectroscopy to molecular and nuclear physics. Artem holds a doctorate degree in molecular physics and a master’s degree in microelectronics from the National Nuclear Research University in Moscow, as well as a master’s degree in business administration from Babson College in Boston.
Maowei Dou, Thermo Fisher Scientific (sponsored by Thermo Fisher Scientific)
Dr. Maowei Dou received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Texas at El Paso investigating microfluidic bioanalysis and point-of-care diagnostics. He continued as a postdoctoral research associate at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory studying single-cell proteomics. He has been a research scientist with Thermo Fisher Scientific since 2019 developing automated proteomics sample preparation reagents and workflows for mass spectrometry analysis.
Benjamin Garcia, University of Washington in St. Louis (sponsored by SCIEX)
Dr. Benjamin A. Garcia obtained his BS in Chemistry at UC Davis in 2000, where he worked as an undergraduate researcher in Prof. Carlito Lebrilla’s laboratory. He received his PhD in Chemistry in 2005 at the University of Virginia under Prof. Donald Hunt and then was an NIH NRSA Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Illinois under Prof. Neil Kelleher from 2005-2008. From there Ben was appointed as an Assistant Professor in the Molecular Biology Department at Princeton University from 2008-2012, until his recruitment as the Presidential Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in 2012, promoted to full Professor in 2016, and named the John McCrea Dickson M.D. Presidential Professor in 2017. Ben moved in the summer of 2021 to the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis to become the Chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics. The Garcia lab has been developing and applying novel proteomic approaches and bioinformatics for interrogating protein modifications, especially those involved in epigenetic mechanisms such as histones during human disease, publishing over 375 publications. He is presently an Associate Editor of the Analytical Chemistry, and Mass Spectrometry Reviews journals; and serves on the editorial boards for the Molecular Omics, the Journal of Proteome Research and the Molecular and Cellular Proteomics journals. He also serves on the Board of Directors for the U.S. Human Proteome Organization (HUPO), the HUPO Governing Council/Executive Committee and the Executive Committee of the American Chemical Society (ACS) Analytical Chemistry Division. Ben has been recognized with many honors and awards for his mass spectrometry research including the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) Research Award, a National Science Foundation CAREER award, an NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, the PITTCON Achievement Award, the Ken Standing Award, the ACS Arthur F. Findeis Award, The Protein Society Young Investigator Award, the ASMS Biemann Medal, the HUPO Discovery in Proteomic Sciences Award, and was named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.