Speakers

INTERNATIONAL

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR EMMA LUNDBERG

SciLifeLab Stockholm and School of Biotechnology, KTH Karolinska Institutet Science Park, Sweden

Associate Professor Emma Lundberg is heading the Cell Profiling group at the Department of Proteomics and Nanobiotechnology at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden. Her research is focused in the interface between affinity proteomics and bioimaging for cell biology applications. Emma’s group is located to the Science for Life Laboratory in Stockholm, a newly started national research center focused on high-throughput molecular bioscience. Furthermore she is the Director of the Subcellular Protein Atlas, part of the Swedish Human Protein Atlas program, and elected member of the Executive Committee of both the Human Proteome Organization as well as the international Human Proteome Project. Dr. Lundberg received her Ph.D. in Biotechnology in 2008 and holds a M.Sc. in Biotechnological Engineering, both from KTH. Dr. Lundberg has co-authored 55 publications and two licensed patent application.

 

PROFESSOR MATTHIAS MANN

Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Martinsried, Germany

Matthias Mann studied physics and mathematics at Göttingen University in Germany and obtained his Ph.D. in chemical engineering at Yale University. Here he was decisively involved in the development of electrospray ionization, which has become a key technology of the life sciences. As a post-doctoral fellow and later as a professor for bioinformatics at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense, he developed, amongst others techniques, the first bioinformatic search algorithms for peptide fragmentation data and SILAC, a new method of quantitative proteomics and a breakthrough in the mapping of protein interactions. In 2005, Matthias Mann took up a director position at the Max-Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Munich. Here his group continues to address a wide range of biological questions using proteomic technology, as well as to develop this technology. The group is also heavily involved in providing proteomic methods and tools to the community. Most importantly in this regard, they have provided the MaxQuant suite of computational proteomics algorithms; this software promises to significantly advance the state of the field. More recently his group used the SILAC technology in conjunction with MaxQuant to described the first comprehensive identification and quantification of a proteome. (http://www.biochem.mpg.de/en/rd/mann) In 2009 Dr. Mann was additionally appointed director of the proteomics department of the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research in Copenhagen. Matthias Mann has authored and co-authored more than 580 publications with a total citation count of more than 100,000, making him one of the most highly cited researchers worldwide, has been elected to membership of the European Molecular Biology Organization, Royal Danish Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Leopoldina German National Academy of Sciences as well as to a visiting professorship at Harvard Medical School. He has received two honorary degrees from Utrecht University and the University of Dundee, respectively. In 2012 he was awarded the Leibniz Prize from the German Research Foundation, the Ernst Schering Prize, the Louis-Jeantet Foundation Prize for Medicine and the Körber European Science Prize.

 

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR GANESH ANAND

Department of Biological Science, National University of Singapore, Singapore

Associate Professor Ganesh Anand received his Bachelor in Pharmacy and Master of Science in Biological Sciences from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India and doctorate from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. He carried out postdoctoral research at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA. Since 2006, he has been a member of the faculty at the Department of Biological Sciences (DBS), National University of Singapore (NUS) and is also the Director of Protein and Proteomics Centre core facility. A/P Anand heads the Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery group at the Department of Biological Sciences, NUS. His research group investigates allostery, conformational dynamics of intrinsically disordered signaling enzymes, and transmembrane receptor signaling. Other projects include protein dynamics in viral maturation and fragment-based drug discovery. The lab uses amide hydrogen/deuterium exchange mass-spectrometry (HDXMS) as a primary tool for protein dynamics and has been recognized as a Waters World Centre of Innovation in HDXMS since 2011.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR MATTHEW CHANG

Department of Biochemistry, National University of Singapore, Singapore

Matthew Chang is Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore and Program Leader of NUS Synthetic Biology for Clinical and Technological Innovation (SynCTI). His research interests lie in synthetic biology of microbial systems, with particular emphasis on development of synthetic microbes that perform programmable functions for engineering applications. In particular, he has pioneered the development of synthetic microbes that show novel programmable therapeutic behaviors. His work has received international recognition and is featured in leading media agencies worldwide. He has been honored with the Scientific and Technological Achievement Award from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and serves as an editorial board member for ACS Synthetic Biology and Biotechnology Journal, and as an associate editor for Biotechnology for Biofuels.

 

PROFESSOR ANNE DELL

Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College, London

Anne Dell was a chemistry undergraduate at the University of Western Australia before undertaking a PhD at the University of Cambridge supported by an 1851 Exhibition Research Scholarship. She moved to Imperial College London for her postdoc where she rose through the ranks to a Personal Chair in 1991. She was Head of the Biochemistry Department from 1999-2001. She was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society in 2002 and was awarded a CBE in recognition of her services to science in 2009. She has received honorary DSC degrees from the University of Western Australia and the University of Waterloo in Canada. Anne was amongst the first investigators to successfully apply soft ionization mass spectrometry to carbohydrate containing biopolymers. Over the past thirty years she has led a major group that has been at the leading edge of the development of many mass spectrometric methods for glycomic and glycoproteomic analyses, especially in the area of biomedical research. Her laboratory provides structural underpinning for programmes of research seeking to define the biological roles that glycans play in health and disease. She is currently a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator and heads the Glycobiology Training, Research and Infrastructure Centre at Imperial College.

 

ASSOCIATE INVESTIGATOR MENG-QIU DONG

National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing

Grown up in the southwestern region of China, Meng-Qiu Dong moved steadily eastwards for higher education until she obtained her Ph.D. degree at Yale University in 2001. Then, her migratory track reserved; after six years of postdoc training in UCSD and the Scripps Research Institute, she moved back to China in 2007 to start her independent research at NIBS, Beijing. In her laboratory, biology and mass spectrometry (MS) goes hand-in-hand. On the biology side, she is interested in understanding the secrets of aging using C. elegans as a model. On the mass spec front, her current focus is perfecting the technology of chemical cross-linking of proteins coupled with mass spectrometry (CXMS). She and collaborators have developed a complete CXMS workflow, which features the most inexpensive and readily available cross-linkers and the software program pLink for data analysis. CXMS is an effective tool for locating the interface between interacting proteins, and is gaining popularity in structural analysis of large protein complexes. Recently, she has extended the technology to mapping native disulfide bonds of proteins from simple or complex samples.

 

PROFESSOR ANDREA SINZ

Institute of Pharmacy, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany

Andrea Sinz received her degree in Pharmacy from the University of Tübingen (Germany) in 1993. She obtained her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the University of Marburg (Germany) in 1997. From 1998 to 2000 she was a post-doctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD (USA) where she got introduced into chemical cross-linking and protein mass spectrometry. From 2001-2006, she was head of the junior research group ‘Protein-Ligand Interaction by Ion Cyclotron Resonance Mass Spectrometry’ at the University of Leipzig (Germany). Since 2007, she is Full Professor and head of the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Bioanalytics at the Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (Germany).

Andrea Sinz is an expert in chemical cross-linking and mass spectrometry for studying protein 3D-structures and protein interactions. Her research interests are the development of novel analytical strategies and reagents to advance the cross-linking/MS approach. She has authored more than 100 papers and is member of the presidential board of the German Society for Mass Spectrometry (DGMS). She has received the Mattauch-Herzog award from the German Society for Mass Spectrometry and the Innovation Award in Medicinal/Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the German Society of Chemists (GDCh) and the German Pharmaceutical Society (DPhG).

  

DR TORSTEN KLEFFMANN

University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

Torsten Kleffmann is director of the Otago Centre for Protein Research at the University of Otago, New Zealand, a facility for biological mass spectrometry with the main focus on proteomics. He is working in the area of proteomics and biological mass spectrometry for more than 15 years and his current interest and research is focused on the dynamics of the protein cargo associated with different lipoprotein particles in the context of cardiovascular disease. After completing his PhD, which he received from the Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany, he moved to Switzerland to work as a postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Wihelm Gruissem in the Group of Plant Biotechnology at the ETH in Zurich. Here he undertook some of the early research on proteome dynamics during plant plastid differentiation. He then moved to New Zealand in 2006 to take on his current position at the University of Otago where he has established the current capabilities for biological mass spectrometry in Centre for Protein Research. Besides his work on the protein composition of lipoproteins in general and lipoprotein(a) in particular, he is involved in various other research projects that focus on mass spectrometry-based proteomics on different biological and biomedical systems.

 

DR THOMAS KISLINGER

Princess Margaret Cancer Center, Ontario, Canada

Thomas Kislinger received his MSc in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Munich, Germany (1998). He completed his PhD in 2001, investigating the role of Advanced Glycation Endproducts in diabetic vascular complications at the University of Erlangen, Germany and Columbia University, New York. Between 2002 and 2006 he completed a post-­‐doctoral fellowship at the University of Toronto using shotgun proteomics to investigate organelle dynamics in mouse models of human disease. In 2006 he joined the Princess Margaret Cancer Center as an independent investigator. Dr. Kislinger holds positions as Senior Scientist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Center and as Associate Professor at the University of Toronto in the Department of Medical Biophysics. He is a Tier 2 Canadian Research Chair in Proteomics in Cancer Research. The research interests in the Kislinger lab are focused on the application of proteomics and computational tools to cancer biology and biomarker discovery. We are particularly interested in combining in-­‐depth proteomics with chemistry, biochemistry and cell & molecular biology to gain novel insights into the function of poorly studied membrane proteins.

 

DR GARY KRUPPA

MRM Proteomics Inc., United States

Gary Kruppa is the CEO of MRM Proteomics. Gary and his team at MRM Proteomics Inc. work with the staff at the University of Victoria/Genome BC Protein Centre led by Prof. Christoph Borchers to develop  MS assays for the quantitative analysis of proteins using LC-MRM/MS (PeptiQuant™ assays) and iMALDI methods. MRM Proteomics Inc. sells PeptiQuant™ assays as a service and has developed PeptiQuant™ kits for use in standardization of LC-MRM/MS workflows across laboratories worldwide. PeptiQuant™ kits are available both for LC-MRM/MS platform quality control and validation and for biomarker discovery and validation via Cambridge Isotope Laborarories, Inc, an its distributors worldwide. Gary received his Ph.D. in chemical physics from the California Institute of Technology.

 

DR CHRISTIE HUNTER

SCIEX United States

Christie Hunter is the Director of Omics Applications at SCIEX. Christie and her team are focused on developing and testing innovative MS workflows to analyze biomolecules, and work collaboratively with the instrument, chemistry and software research groups. Her primary area of focus is the application of MS based tools for the quantitative analysis of proteins and using MRM and SWATH® based strategies.

Christie Hunter is the Director of Proteomic Applications at AB SCIEX. Christie and her team are focused on developing and testing innovative MS workflows for the quantitative analysis of proteins and peptides, and work collaboratively with the instrument, chemistry and software research groups. Her primary area of focus is targeted peptide quantification, mainly using MRM based strategies. Most recently, she has focused on new technologies for further improving quantitative proteomic applications using differential mobility separation and the new MS/MSALL with SWATH Acquisition workflow. Christie received her Ph.D. in protein biochemistry from the University of British Columbia (Canada).

 

DR YUE XUAN

Thermo Fisher Scientific, Germany

Dr. Yue Xuan is currently working in the global Product Marketing team for Q Exactive Series platforms at Thermo Fisher Scientific in Bremen, Germany. In her current role, she develops novel application workflows and collaborates with customers in the “omics” and biopharma researches for the existing and further developed Orbitrap based Mass Spectrometers. Since 2013 she has put focus on the Data Independent Acquisition (DIA) method development on Q Exactive MS platform. The lately activities also include DIA publications, webinars, collaborations as well as IS-PRM. She has more than 10 years experience in LC-MS related application development area, starting from the Finnigan LTQ FT till today’s Thermo ScientificTM Q ExactiveTM HF mass spectrometer. She is also one of the pioneers in the development of the 1st Thermo ScientificTM Q Exactive MassTM Spectrometer. Dr. Xuan holds a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from University of Dortmund and a M.S. in Chemistry from the Free University of Berlin, Germany.

 

DR ROBERTO CASTANGIA

Shimadzu United Kingdom

Roberto is a Pharmaceutical Chemist.

After his BSc in Italy, he worked at the CNRS in France and at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, before moving to the University of Manchester, UK, to pursue his Ph.D. in Chemical Biology. After a stay as a post-doc at the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology (MIB), he started at Kratos Analytical Ltd. in 2012 working as a Global MALDI Applications Scientist.Since 2015; he is managing the Global Sales Department for Shimadzu MALDI Division.

 

NATIONAL

PROFESSOR NICKI PACKER

Macquarie University, Sydney

Prof Nicki Packer has had an extensive and varied career in biomolecular research. She was part of the team that established the Australian Proteome Analysis Facility (APAF) and co-founded Proteome Systems Limited, an Australian biotechnology company. She is now Professor of Glycoproteomics, Director of MQ Biomolecular Frontiers Research Centre, Deputy Director of the ARC Industrial Transformation Training Centre for Molecular Technology in the Food Industry and Discovery Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence in Nanoscale BioPhotonics. She has gained international profile by linking glycomics with proteomics and bioinformatics to determine biological function. Her research interests are now in the structure, function, informatics and application of glycans as molecular markers, particularly in their role in cancer, imaging and microbial infection.

 

DR TARA PUKALA

University of Adelaide, Adeleaide

Tara Pukala obtained a PhD from the University of Adelaide in 2006.  This was followed by a postdoctoral position at the University of Cambridge, UK, working in the field of native mass spectrometry.  Tara returned to Australia to her current role as lecturer in the Discipline of Chemistry at the University of Adelaide in 2008.  Here she leads a multidisciplinary research group focused on developing new approaches, primarily utilising mass spectrometry, to investigate the higher order structure, function and interactions of macromolecules important in biology.

 

DR NICOLAS TAYLOR

University of Western Australia, Western Australia

Nic Taylor completed his undergraduate studies and MSc at Massey University, New Zealand and in 2000 moved to UWA to undertake his PhD. After his PhD he was awarded and European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) Long Term Fellowship to study at the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Oxford. He was recruited back to UWA in 2006 to the newly established ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology (ARC CoE PEB). Here he has applied and developed a wide range of quantitative proteomics approaches in his research. He is particularly well known for his pioneering work in the development of peptide selective reaction monitoring (SRM) mass spectrometry approaches in plants and developed an SRM toolbox (APP, http://www.plantenergy.uwa.edu.au/APP/) for plant biologists wishing to conduct SRM experiment in the model plant Arabidopsis.

His lab seeks gain a comprehensive understandings of how metabolites, proteins and lipids within plant cells respond to extremes of temperature and salt with the hope this knowledge can be applied to future breeding programs to allow the production of thermal and salinity tolerant crop plants. He is currently an ARC Future Fellow at the ARC CoE PEB and School of Chemistry & Biochemistry at UWA, a member of the Multinational Arabidopsis Steering Subcommittee for Proteomics (MASCP) and the Australian Representative of the International Plant Proteomics Organisation (INPPO). In 2015 he was awarded the Robson Medal for Research Excellence in Agriculture and Related Areas.

 

DR DARREN CREEK

Monash University, Melbourne

Dr Darren Creek is a Senior Lecturer and head of the metabolomics laboratory at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences. He completed his PhD at Monash University in 2007, which led to the discovery of a new antimalarial, OZ439, and conducted post-doctoral training on clinical pharmacokinetics with UCSF-Makerere research collaboration in Uganda. Dr Creek received a CJ Martin Fellowship (NHMRC) to study parasite metabolomics at the University of Glasgow and the University of Melbourne. He developed several novel analytical methods and software for the metabolomics field, and discovered novel pathways and drug mechanisms in protozoan parasites. His group continues to develop novel metabolomics techniques and apply systems approaches to understand the role of metabolism in drug action and resistance mechanisms for cancer and infectious diseases. He currently holds an RD Wright Career Development Fellowship (NHMRC) and is a Director of the international Metabolomics Society.

 

DR MELISSA DAVIS

Walter+Eliza Hall Institute for Medical Research, Melbounre

Dr Melissa Davis is a computational biologist, with a background in genetics and computational cell biology and expertise in the analysis of protein interaction networks, genome-scale regulatory networks, and knowledge-based modelling. Melissa did her post-doctoral training at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience in Brisbane, before taking up a position as Senior Research Fellow and Group Leader in Cancer Systems Biology at the University of Melbourne in 2014. In 2016 Melissa will relocate her group to the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute for Medical Research, where she will take up an appointment as a Group Leader in the Division of Bioinformatics. Melissa holds a four year NBCF Career Development Fellowship to study the systems biology of epithelial-mesenchymal plasticity in breast cancer as part of the national EMPathy Breast Cancer Network.

  

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR UTE ROESSNER

The University of Melbourne, Melbourne

A/Prof. Roessner has obtained her Diploma in Biochemistry at the University of Potsdam and the John Innes Institute in Norwich, UK after which she pursued a PhD in Plant Biochemistry at the MPI for Molecular Plant Physiology in Germany, where she developed novel GC-MS methods to analyse metabolites in plants. Together with the application of sophisticated data mining the field of metabolomics was born and is today an important tool in biological sciences, systems biology and biomarker discovery. In 2003 she moved to Australia where she established a GC-MS and LC-MS based metabolomics platform as part of the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics for which she led the node at the University of Melbourne. In addition, since 2007 A/Prof. Roessner has been involved in the setup of Metabolomics Australia (MA), a federal and state government funded national metabolomics service facility and now leads the MA node at The University of Melbourne. In 2013 A/Prof Roessner was successful being awarded an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship to establish her own research program applying Imaging Mass Spectrometry for spatial metabolite and lipid analyses to solve biological questions.