Massing in Missouri for mass spec

American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS)

63^rd ASMS Conference on Mass Spectrometry and Allied Topics

America’s Center

St. Louis, Mo.

May 31–June 4, 2015

 

 

The American Society for Mass Spectrometry heads to St. Louis for its 2015 annual meeting

 

ST. LOUIS, Mo.—Host cities for annual meetings are picked for so many different reasons, from cost to convenience to connections. The middle of the country to be accessible to the most people. The nation’s capital because of advocacy and legislative issues. A desert climate for a fall or winter meeting so no one needs to pack their sweaters and parkas. A historic or major city because people just want to visit it anyway and the annual meeting gives them just one more reason to do so. And so on.

 

Whether or not the venue for the 63^rd ASMS Conference on Mass Spectrometry and Allied Topics of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) has any special significance is simply a matter of conjecture for those of us who didn’t plan the event. But perhaps—and this is simply an editorial opinion here at DDNews—some reasons can be gleaned from the description of St. Louis on the ASMS website for the ASMS 2015 event.

 

As Santa Fe, N.M.-based ASMS writes, “St. Louis continues to reinvent itself with more than $5 billion being spent on development projects over the past 10 years. Historic buildings in the Gateway City’s central business district are undergoing transformations and being repurposed for 21^st century uses. From loft condos, hotels and apartments to restaurants, retail and entertainment venues, St. Louis is enjoying new life.”

 

At a time when both the U.S. Congress and the President of the United States are talking about making 21^st century healthcare practices and technologies—and personalized medicine—a priority, this century that we only just began 15 years ago and that ASMS notes St. Louis is embracing lately might have some symmetry. The idea of reinvention and repurposing might have some meaning as mass spectrometry and related/allied technologies like liquid chromatography and bioinformatics find ever-expanding and unexpected used in drug discovery and development and other life-sciences applications. The “new life” of St. Louis may have something to do with new purposes for scientific instruments.

 

But enough with conjecture. What can we actually tell you about the conference?

 

First off, ASMS 2015 will be held in the America’s Center Convention Complex in St. Louis, a center that reportedly offers compact and flexible space that is close to many hotels and restaurants. All sessions, posters and exhibits will take place in the convention center. Corporate hospitality suites will be in the Renaissance Grand Hotel, less than one block from the facility.

 

In an unusual structural choice by the society, all exhibits are single booths—10-footers for exhibitors both large and small. The hospitality suites will provide exhibitors with an opportunity to tell their stories in greater depth after show hours.

 

Two-day short courses will begin the day before the conference’s official start, on Saturday, May 30, and conclude on Sunday. There are also a few one-day short courses.

 

On Sunday night there will be two tutorial lectures, with Ann L. Oberg of the Mayo Clinic speaking on “Statistical Experimental Design: The Building Blocks of a Good Experiment” and Gary Patti of Washington University in St. Louis tackling “Metabolite Profiling at the ‘Omic’ Scale: Untargeted Does not Mean Unplanned.”

 

Following those speakers will be the Opening Session Plenary Lecture by Jeffrey Gordon, also of Washington University—specifically, director of the Center for Genome Science and Systems Biology at the Washington University School of Medicine—whose presentation is titled “The Human Gut Microbiome and Healthy Growth.” A 2012 podcast interview for Science magazine might give some idea of the direction of his lecture. In it, he noted we are hosts to a “megapolis” of bacterial residents, with such microorganisms in our body outnumbering human cells by ten times. Gordon said of that, “We are not superior but assimilated by the microbes that dominate the planet. Like every other animal, we have to adapt, coexist and benefit from the microbial world.” He has noted that the field of microbiome research will in part deal with disease prevention as well as health enhancement and that the development of next-generation probiotics or active food ingredients may blur the border between food and medicine.

 

The opening reception, which is open to all conference attendees, will immediately follow the opening plenary lecture, offering an opportunity to meet up with colleagues and friends or develop new ones. ASMS promises, as it says, “heavy hors d’oeuvres (yes, enough to call it dinner), free beer and soft drinks, and cash bar for wine,” adding that scientific posters do not go up until Monday morning, “making this the time to visit with exhibitors.”

 

The oral sessions Monday through Thursday are, of course, too numerous to go into here, so visit ASMS at www.asms.org to locate the conference program.

 

Almost closing out the annual meeting on Thursday will be a plenary lecture by G. Michael Lemole Jr. of the University of Arizona College of Medicine titled “The Evolution of Modern Neurosurgery: A History of Trial and Error, Success and Failure.” The closing event that evening will be at City Museum in St. Louis, which is housed in the 600,000 square-foot former International Shoe Company—the museum is, ASMS says, “an eclectic mixture of funhouse, surrealistic pavilion and architectural marvel made out of unique, found objects … Cassilly and his longtime crew of 20 artisans have constructed the museum from the very stuff of the city; and, as a result, it has deep urban roots reaching into the city for reclaimed building materials, old chimneys, salvaged bridges, construction cranes, miles of tile, and even two abandoned planes find a new purpose here.” Tickets are required to attend the event.

 

For more about what’s at the annual meeting in terms of educational content, tech offerings and more, just read on in this section. And if you weren’t already planning to visit the Gateway City in late May and early June, perhaps you’ll have a reason to now.

 

 

 

ST. LOUIS, Mo.—It was in late February that ASMS made an announcement of its newest group, the ASMS Exposomics Interest Group, but the ASMS 2015 meeting in St. Louis may be your best chance to get to know the group better. June 2 will see an Exposomics Interest Group workshop titled “Measuring the exposome: Strategies and preliminary results.” This workshop will review mass spectrometric-based assays designed to measure the exposome both from a discovery and from a targeted perspective and present real data from case/control studies for discussion.

 

As noted by the group on the ASMS website about its nature and goals, “The exposome encompasses the other ‘omes’ and represents all non-genetic factors in disease causation. For example, when one measures the metabolome or lipidome, they are measuring a slice of the exposome. The exposome is therefore a quantity of critical interest if we are to fully define the causative factors in chronic human disease. The application of mass spectrometric technologies to measure the exposome will provide reliable information on the relationship between exposure and risk. The use of exposome paradigm will facilitate the translation of research into educational, behavioral and policy-based risk mitigating interventions.”

 

The Exposomics Interest Group notes that global interest in the exposome is growing and this expansion can be seen in the increased number of exposome publications in peer-reviewed journals since 2010. Moreover, major U.S. and Canadian educational institutions, including Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University and University of Alberta, are engaged in exposome research. In Japan, researchers are conducting a prospective mother/child cohort, with more than 300,000 participants, to measure the exposome and in China, the interest group says, “several universities are moving away from measuring pollutants in air and water and into the exposome paradigm.”

 

 

SANTA FE, N.M.—ASMS noted on its website in February that R. Graham Cooks, Henry Bohn Hass Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Purdue University, has been named a 2014 National Academy of Inventors (NAI) Fellow. Election as an NAI Fellow is a high professional distinction accorded to academic inventors who have demonstrated a highly prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development, and the welfare of society.

 

 

SANTA FE, N.M.—Early February saw an announcement from ASMS that the following people had accepted invitations to serve on the editorial board of the Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (JASMS): Thorsten Benter of Bergische Universität in Germany, Hao Chen of Ohio University, Helen Cooper of the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, Facundo Fernandez of the Georgia Institute of Technology, Myung Soo Kim of Seoul National University in Korea, John Klassen of the University of Alberta in Canada, Lingjun Li of the University of Wisconsin, Zheng Ouyang of Purdue University, Kevin Schug of the University of Texas at Arlington and Sarah Trimpin of Wayne State University in Michigan.

 

Editorial board members are invited by the ASMS board of directors based on several criteria, including being a frequent contributor and reviewer for the journal. Duties of editorial board members include active support of the journal’s editorial functions, such as reviewing manuscripts, encouraging submissions to JASMS, creative input and participation in the annual editorial board meetings that are held during the ASMS Annual Conference.

 

 

 

By Lloyd Dunlap & Jeffrey Bouley

 

While it would be nice to cheer on the hottest and newest technology at the ASMS Annual Conference in St. Louis and get you worked up for the “big game” of ASMS 2015, the truth is that companies aren’t very talkative about what they’ll promote in the exhibit area, probably in part because if it’s new, they want to surprise you. And even if they don’t have any new tech in terms of mass spectrometry (MS) or allied technologies like liquid chromatography (LC), they want to give you a reason to drop by their booths and find out what they’re highlighting.

 

However, while we may not be able to tell you much about what exhibitors will have at ASMS 2015, we do have a roundup of recent technology news from a sampling of heavy hitters who will be at the conference, which might give you some hint of their upcoming offerings, and news from a couple companies on what they’ll have to show you at the annual meeting.

 

 

MILFORD, Mass.—Early March saw Waters Corp. post Pittcon 2015-related news from New Orleans announcing that its new full-spectrum molecular imaging system—introduced the very week of Pittcon’s conference—was honored with the Pittcon Editors' Silver award for the most innovative product at Pittcon. The Waters AQUITY UPLC system also got special recognition at the event.

 

Based on the Waters SYNAPT G2-Si mass spectrometer, the Waters full-spectrum molecular imaging system—which the company plans to begin shipments of in the third quarter of 2015—pinpoints, with greater specificity, the distribution of large and small molecules within tissue samples, the company says, maintaining that it is the first system ever to allow scientists to access enhanced matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) and desorption electrospray ionization (DESI) with ion mobility separation in a single mass spectrometry platform. Information derived from imaging experiments can greatly benefit cancer, cardiovascular and neurodegenerative research by measuring the distribution of molecules in cells and tissues. MS imaging also allows researchers to identify different tissue types based on their molecular composition.

 

“By combining MALDI with DESI and ion mobility on the same instrument, Waters brings molecular imaging to a new level,” said Dr. Jeff Mazzeo, a senior director of health sciences for Waters. “We are committed to giving cell biologists, biochemists, clinical researchers and analytical scientists the tools they need to obtain a maximum amount of information to advance their research into human health. The new full-spectrum molecular imaging system combines and optimizes Waters’ mass spectrometry technologies to deliver a level of detail and molecular information beyond that of any individual imaging technique.”

 

 

SANTA CLARA, Calif.—Agilent Technologies Inc. on March 12 announced new software releases designed to make research and development easier for scientists in the biopharmaceutical field. Specifically, enhancements to the company’s industry-leading MassHunter BioConfirm and MassHunter Walkup products now reportedly enable researchers to more easily focus on protein characterization, helping them obtain molecular weight, locate post-translational modifications in protein sequences and create comprehensive peptide maps with speed and accuracy.

 

“With the shift from small-molecule pharmaceuticals to large-molecule biopharmaceuticals, companies need to retool their discovery operations in terms of both laboratory equipment and employee skill sets,” said Dr. Gurmil Gendeh, director of biopharmaceutical segment marketing for Agilent. “We have responded with software tools that allow virtually anyone to use highly advanced instruments for tandem liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry.”

 

Gendeh noted that the Agilent software for biopharmaceutical analysis is easy to learn and easy to use. “Agilent has taken the lead in offering biologists the ability to walk up to an LC/MS instrument and get back excellent analytical results,” he said. “The software greatly improves user-to-user and day-to-day consistency and allows for easy method transferability between laboratories and sites.”

 

The software is said to significantly reduce the learning curve for researchers because they can submit samples through a simple, three-step process. The system then emails the results to them, using reports that were designed by and for biologists. In addition to the reduced training requirements, far less setup time is required, so researchers can focus on advancing new biological entities along their company’s development pipeline. What’s more, Agilent says, its software provides more accurate results because it makes use of Agilent databases and searches for more diverse, post-translational modifications than other systems.

 

 

WALTHAM, Mass.—One of the new products unveiled at last year’s ASMS annual meeting, the Q Exactive HF Benchtop Orbitrap mass spectrometer, is quite likely to see some prominence at the ASMS booth for Thermo Fisher Scientific this year. The Q Exactive HF mass spectrometer is a next-generation benchtop system with an ultra-high-field Orbitrap detector, providing speed, productivity and confidence for both qualitative and quantitative omics workflows. Also in that Exactive product line—and an item featured in our Products & Services section last issue—is the Q Exactive Focus hybrid quadrupole-Orbitrap MS, so we wouldn’t be surprised to see that at ASMS 2015 either. The Q Exactive Focus is said to offer sensitivity, selectivity, flexibility and ease-of-use thanks to hybrid quadrupole-Orbitrap mass spectrometers that, according to Thermo, “set the standard for screening, quantitation, identification and confirmation of targeted and untargeted compounds … the Q Exactive Focus hybrid quadrupole-Orbitrap MS makes this power accessible to pharmaceutical labs challenged by growing sample volumes and constrained by strict budgets.”

 

Another Thermo product that was new last year is the TSQ 8000 Evo Triple Quadrupole GC-MS/MS. As Thermo said then, “Expect more with the evolution of the highly successful TSQ 8000 GC-MS/MS system featuring EvoCell technology. The new Thermo Scientific TSQ 8000 Evo Triple quadrupole GC-MS/MS offers more MS/MS simplicity and unstoppable productivity to provide ultimate performance SRM for the high-throughput analytical laboratory.”

 

In other Thermo Fisher Scientific news, March 9 of this year saw the company unveil a pair of new offerings at the Pittcon 2015 meeting in New Orleans: a new online repository that provides instant and free access to hundreds of full analytical methods and a “transformative” ultra high-performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC)  system.

 

As for the former, Thermo says that laboratories seeking to reduce the amount of time and effort spent on researching, developing or implementing analytical methods can now access a new, free online repository containing more than 800 validated methods for a wide range of common workflows.

 

“We continue to see the move toward more accessibility of technology across the science community, including scientific expertise and knowledge which hold real value for our customers,” said Fraser McLeod, vice president and general manager of HPLC for Thermo Fisher Scientific.

 

The UHPLC system Thermo introduced promises enhanced levels of performance, productivity and usability for laboratories performing life-sciences research and other demanding analyses.

 

The new Thermo Scientific Vanquish UHPLC features “a clean design that combines the ruggedness of an integrated system with the flexibility and serviceability of a modular system.” The Vanquish system can be used as a standalone system or with the latest mass spectrometer, and stands about 25 percent shorter than comparable modular stacks, for safety and convenience in the laboratory.

 

“Rather than making incremental improvements to UHPLC, we have designed this platform from the ground up, including the columns,” said McLeod. “The result is a system that combines advantages in separations performance, sample throughput, ease-of-use, reproducibility and method transfer efficiency.”

 

 

BILLERICA, Mass.—Among the offerings you can expect to see at ASMS 2015 for EMD Millipore are a wide range of innovative HPLC columns and packing materials to ensure the highest performance and most efficient chromatographic analyses, including Chromolith columns for HPLC, Chromolith HighResolution columns, SeQuant HILIC HPLC columns and Purospher STAR columns.

 

Also on tap will be a diverse portfolio of high-quality solvents for instrumental analysis applications like HPLC, gas chromatography, spectroscopy and NMR applications, notably: LiChrosolv solvents that are designed to support analytical HPLC, fast chromatography and LC-MS applications, as well as the OmniSolv product group which is composed of EMD Millipore’s highest purity solvents, suitable for a broad range of applications.

 

On the sample preparation front, EMD Millipore offers a variety of products with excellent absorptive, adsorptive, filtration and clarification properties. These products can be used for purification but also as reaction and filtration aids, as fillers, additives, or as carriers of active ingredients. Among them are the Samplicity filtration system, Millex syringe filters, the Amicon Pro purification system and ZipTip pipette tips for concentrating and purifying samples for MALDI-ToF MS.

 

Finally, EMD Millipore’s Lab Water portfolio will be featured, including a broad range of pure and ultrapure water purification systems and services designed for scientists working in pharmaceutical, clinical, academic, industrial, research and government laboratories—both in validated and non-validated environments. The company’s Milli-Q Integral water purification system includes an optimized sequence of water purification and monitoring technologies in a single unit, allowing both pure and ultrapure water to be produced directly from the tap. The high purity water is suitable for HPLC, LC-MS, MALDI-ToF-MS, IC, ICP, AA and most of the analytical techniques commonly used in the laboratory.

 

 

MADISON, Wis.— Founded in 1978, Promega Corp. started with the production of enzymes for researchers and has evolved to offering more than 3,000 products for a broad array of applications including basic research, drug discovery, forensics and paternity testing, as well as hospital and clinic-based diagnostics. Promega Global Product Manager Gary Kobs notes that MS is now broadly applied in the proteomics market and can now identify and quantitate thousands of proteins in a single run. Application of the technology to small molecules is still in the future, he adds. He tells DDNews, “We will be promoting core products this year and introducing new reference standards.” Among the featured products: Trypsin/Lys-C Mix, mass spec grade, for improved proteolytic efficiency for enhanced reproducible results; a complete solution for LC and MS instrument quality control and performance monitoring with the 6×5 LC-MS/MS Peptide Reference Mix; and mass spec-compatible yeast and human protein extracts.

 

 

 

Bioinformatics tools are routinely used to identify proteins from “shotgun” LC-MS/MS data sets. These tools, however, are often poorly understood by their users. This course seeks to familiarize proteomics researchers with the inner workings of the software that enables this field.

 

This course will cover aspects of mass spectrometric analysis as applied to clinical diagnostics. Rather than approach the use of diagnostic mass spectrometry from the ground up, the course will focus on those components which are singular to the clinical diagnostics industry.

 

Mass spectrometry has become the dominant tool throughout the drug discovery/development continuum. This short course will provide a thesis on mass spectrometry in drug metabolism, pharmacokinetics (DMPK), and pharmacodynamics (biomarker) in support of R&D and the registration process.

 

This course is designed for scientists who want to learn specific techniques for the MS and MS/MS characterization of glycans and glycoproteins. The course will address fundamental aspects of glycobiology, sample preparation and handling, mass spectrometry (hardware and software) and bioinformatic tools for interpretation of results.

 

This introductory course is designed to teach participants the utility, advantages and limitations of conducting LC/MSn analysis using high-resolution mass spectrometry. The fundamental concepts of high resolution and accurate mass measurement will be developed, as will techniques for mass measurement and mass calibration. Current instrument options including time of flight, FTMS and ion traps will be described and compared.

 

This course is designed for the chromatographer/mass spectrometrist who wants to be successful in developing methods, optimizing methods and solving problems using LC-MS.

 

This course presents a comprehensive overview of technology and techniques of analytical mass spectrometry and from that foundation extends into exciting, disruptive recent developments.

 

This course covers the general topic of using mass spectrometry to obtain molecular images from tissue sections, with a focus on MALDI imaging. An overview of different applications and mass analyzers commonly used for small- and large-molecule imaging will be presented.

 

This course will provide basic knowledge related to time-of-flight, ion cyclotron resonance, quadrupole field-based mass analyzers and combinations thereof. The goal is for students to be able to maximize the potential of the mass spectrometers they currently use and to be able to critically evaluate the options for future instrument purchases.

 

This course is designed for the student who wants to understand more about the fundamental, instrumental and practical aspects of tandem mass spectrometry. Day one focuses on instrumentation and day two begins with MS/MS rate theory and comparison of energy deposition mechanisms and dissociation times associated with popular instruments, including discussion of how these influence fragmentation patterns. The course material is designed for the general audience, and organizers encourage participants to contact them in advance if there are particular molecule types or questions they would like addressed.

 

This course is designed as an introduction for researchers needing to expand their knowledge of the use of mass spectrometry-based methods for the identification, characterization and quantification of peptides and proteins. Background material in basic protein chemistry will be provided along with a review of mass analyzers, acquisition types and ionization sources used for protein and peptide analysis. Real-world examples will be used to illustrate protein sample preparation strategies, characterization of intact proteins, characterization of post-translational modifications (with emphasis on glycosylation and phosphorylation), identification of proteins via database searching, direct identification of proteins from gels and complex mixtures, and quantitative differential protein expression studies.

 

This course is designed for those who wish to understand protein structure with mass spectrometry. Focus will be on hydrogen exchange for half of the course and on covalent labeling for the other half. There will be a discussion of the theory behind each labeling method as it relates to proteins in solution, the general methodological steps one takes to do these analyses and a guide on how to process and interpret the resulting data.

 

This introductory course is designed for practicing analytical scientists (new users, chromatographers, analytical chemists, protein chemists, and laboratory managers) performing/supporting recombinant protein characterization/analysis, in-process testing, quality control, quality assurance, research and development and manufacturing.

 

This course allows students to develop skills and experience in the analysis and interpretation of quantitative proteomics data. Students will be introduced to a series of case studies and use currently available computer applications to reanalyze the data and summarize key results and findings. Multiple quantitative workflows will be covered, including SILAC, differential mass spectrometry and targeted proteomic methods.

 

This introductory/intermediate level course explores the principles of quantitative mass spectrometry as they apply primarily to small-molecule analyses. Ample time will be provided for general discussion of the topics presented and other current topics in quantitative MS.

 

 

This short course will seek to introduce a basic skill set for troubleshooting and repair of LC-MS instrumentation, including the following areas: basic “best practices,” system suitability and qualification, tuning, calibration, basic troubleshooting and maintenance. Importantly, the course will actively seek to remain as vendor-neutral as absolutely possible and will seek to cover nanoscale, microscale and analytical-scale chromatographic methods as well as general information on ion trap, quadrupole, FT and TOF mass spectrometry platforms.

 

This course is designed for investigators with minimal experience in metabolomics, but with background in mass spectrometry. The course will focus on untargeted profiling of metabolites with LC/MS approaches, providing a detailed overview of each step of the workflow.

 

In September 2013, FDA published a draft guidance to provide general recommendations for bioanalytical method validation using advanced technologies, including LC-MS/MS. The content of the original guidance issued in 2001 was revised to reflect advances in science and technology related to validating bioanalytical methods. This one-day short course will focus on the bioanalytical method validation for drugs and metabolites.

 

 

If you’re already thinking ahead to your next destination after ASMS 2015 in St. Louis, you might want to consider checking out the Asilomar Conference home page on the ASMS website. The conference, titled “Native Mass Spectrometry-based Structural Biology,” will be held Oct. 16-20, 2015, at the Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, Calif. Organizers are Albert Heck of Utrecht University and Joseph Loo of the University of California, Los Angeles.

As ASMS notes of the event, “Native mass spectrometry provides a means to interrogate the structure of large biomolecules and complexes from a non-denaturing solution environment. The method has now matured and found its way into integrated structural biology projects, primarily to establish the unknown architecture of large protein complexes and molecular machineries.”

“Biomolecular Interactions” was the topic of the 2003 Asilomar Conference, but there has been many advancements since then, ASMS notes, including the introduction of new mass analyzers, improvements in sample handling ionization techniques, the rapid adoption of ion mobility spectrometry and the application of different ion activation methods to elucidate structure of and interactions within protein assemblies. New areas of application have emerged, focusing on the structures of such things as viruses, membrane proteins, biopharmaceuticals and signaling nodes.

 

At the ASMS Career Center, ASMS members may access job listings related to mass spectrometry, create job alerts or post an anonymous resume in the resume bank. Non-members registered for the annual conference will also have access for the months of May and June. Employers may post a job to reach the best mass spectrometry professionals.

 

 

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