2023 Young Investigator Travel Awards

The Washington-Baltimore Mass Spectrometry Discussion Group (WBMSDG) is pleased to announce that applications are now being accepted for the 2023 Young Investigator Travel Awards. Awards will be granted to outstanding young investigators at the undergraduate or graduate student level to support travel to the 71st ASMS Conference. Undergraduate and graduate students in laboratories and institutions traditionally associated with the WBMSDG in the following geographic regions are encouraged to apply: from Richmond and Charlottesville, VA to the South and Newark, DE to the North.

Three awards will be given. 1st place: $650, 2nd place: $550, 3rd place: $450.

Complete applications consist of the following items:
1. Travel Grant 2023 Application form (includes a checklist)
2. Electronic copy of ASMS abstract
3. Evidence of abstract acceptance by ASMS indicating the presentation format (poster or oral)
4. Curriculum Vitae or Resume
5. Two-page summary of research project (figures can be included)
6. Letter of recommendation from advisor

Applicants should submit items 1-5 listed above as a single PDF file to Dr. Dapeng Chen. Item 6 must be sent directly by the applicant’s advisor to Dr. Dapeng Chen:

Dapeng Chen, PhD
WBMSDG co-chair
dapeng.chen@zeteotech.com

The deadline for applications is 5 PM EST on Friday, April 28th, 2023. A panel of WBMSDG members will act as reviewers. Please note, previous winners are encouraged to apply if the award application for the upcoming ASMS conference significantly differs from the previously successful application. In the event that ASMS is cancelled, awards will be given out as well as prize amounts up to the full award to cover any incurred costs associated with ASMS travel. Successful applicants will be expected to give a 10-minute oral presentation at the post-ASMS WBMSDG meeting on June 23rd, 2023 at Shimadzu Scientific in Columbia, MD.

April Meeting

Joint with the Washington Chromatography Discussion Group

Speaker: Ina Nemet, Lerner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic

Topic: Dissecting gut microbial metabolic pathways in cardiometabolic diseases by mass spectrometry-based metabolic approaches

Date: Monday, April 17, 2023

Time: 6:15 pm Dinner, 7:15 pm Presentation

Location: Shimadzu Scientific Instrument, Inc. Training Center 7100 Riverwood Drive, Columbia, MD 21046 (Directions)
This will be an in-person meeting. Attendees are required to show a vaccine card (either at the door or in advance using the web form) . If you have submitted your vaccine card before, your status is already recorded.

Dinner: Please RSVP to Andy Qi (andy.yue.qi@gmail.com) by Friday, April 14 if you will be attending the dinner.

Abstract: Elucidating pathways that contribute to cardio-metabolic diseases beyond traditional risk factors, is important for developing new strategies effective in preventing and reducing disease progression. Multiple diseases including cardiovascular disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and hypertension are associated with altered gut microbial structure and function. Rational design of personalized therapeutic strategies that target gut microbiota driven pathways require a comprehensive understanding of gut microbial metabolism and the relationship between systemic levels of metabolites and disease risks.
Recently we have clinically and mechanistically linked phenylacetylglutamine (PAGln), a gut microbially derived metabolite from aromatic amino acid phenylalanine, with cardiovascular disease risks. PAGln was elevated in diabetics and predicted incident risks for cardiovascular events independent of blood glucose levels. Mechanistic studies reveal PAGln acts via the adrenergic receptor. We have continued mapping out microbial metabolic pathways that are associated with adverse phenotypes in the host. The results of these studies will provide a meaningful starting point for the development of new therapeutic treatments for cardiometabolic diseases aimed at shifting nutrient fermentation away from metabolites associated with disease toward ones that are beneficial to the host.

Thank you to our 2022-2023 sponsors!

5th Annual North American Mass Spectrometry Summer School

June 10-13, 2023, Madison, WI

Over a dozen world leading experts in mass spectrometry for this three-day course to provide our students, both from academia and industry, an engaging and inspiring program covering the latest in the application of mass spectrometry to omic analyses. Tutorial lectures range from mass analyzers to the basics of data analysis. There is no cost to participate.

Registration closes on April 1, 2023 or when capacity is reached: https://www.ncqbcs.com

MassSpecSummerSchool2023

March Meeting

Speaker: Robert Cole, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Topic: What’s on your albumin?

Date: Monday, March 20, 2023

Time: 6:15 pm Dinner, 7:15 pm Presentation

Location: Shimadzu Scientific Instrument, Inc. Training Center 7100 Riverwood Drive, Columbia, MD 21046 (Directions)
This will be an in-person meeting. Attendees are required to show a vaccine card (either at the door or in advance using the web form) . If you have submitted your vaccine card before, your status is already recorded.

Dinner: Please RSVP to Andy Qi (andy.yue.qi@gmail.com) by Friday, March 17 if you will be attending the dinner.

Abstract: Environmental exposures contribute to chronic disease risk substantially more than heritable genetic variants. Outdoor air pollution is a complex environmental
mixture which is responsible for over 4 million deaths each year, an impact that is projected to rise over the next several decades. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has declared outdoor air pollution to be Group 1 human carcinogen. Outdoor air is a complex mixture of volatile organic toxins and carcinogens (e.g., aldehydes and benzene), sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and particulate matter. Assessing personal exposure to environmental toxicants in complex mixtures, such as outdoor air pollution, is a critical challenge for predicting disease risk. Thus, developing and validating biomarkers which reveal exposure to these complex mixtures would advance individual risk analysis. Using human serum albumin (HSA)-based biomonitoring, we reported dosimetric relationships between adducts at HSA Cys34 and ambient air pollutant levels. However, modifications at other sites in HSA may reveal a great number of novel adducts and provide a panel of exposure biomarkers for disease risk. To bridge this gap, we developed a novel untargeted mass spectrometry-based method, termed Pan-Protein Adductomics (PPA),
to agnostically detect and quantify modifications at multiple residues in human serum albumin (HSA). Our PPA method combines nanoflow-liquid chromatography, gas-phase fractionation, overlapping-window data-independent acquisition, and high-resolution tandem mass spectrometry to assay modifications on HSA. Our initial application of PPA is to assess temporal changes in HSA modifications in non-smoking women exposed to high levels of outdoor air pollution. While we are currently focused on modifications in albumin, the PPA approach is applicable to any protein and may expand the knowledge base of protein modifications.

Thank you to our 2022-2023 sponsors!

Free Virtual Lipidomics Workshop

March 20-21, 2023, via Zoom

This fast-paced, interactive workshop will cover the fundamentals of lipid data acquisition, and data processing on a mass spectrometer. It is open to those who have at least 6 months of mass spec hands-on use and/or experience processing mass spec data.

This Zoom workshop will be a mix of lectures, demos and discussion, topics include:
Research Lecture by Alan Saghatelian of the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences
Chromatography and MS Acquisition Lecture
Method Setup on QExactive, Tribrid and Exploris Demo
Lipid Overview Lecture
Lipidex & Compound Discover Demo
Quality Control Lecture
Data Analysis Tools Lecture
Library Building Demo

APPLICATION CLOSES March 15 or when capacity is reached
Details can be found at https://www.ncqbcs.com/resources/training/lipidomics-training

LipidsWorkshopFlyer