April Meeting

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Speaker: Mark Mellinger, GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals

Topic: Recent Advances in the Field of Chiral Chromatography

Date: April 14, 2025

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

Location: Shimadzu Scientific Instrument, Inc. Training Center 7100 Riverwood Drive, Columbia, MD 21046 (Directions)

Dinner: Please RSVP to Dingyin Tao (owendtao@gmail.com) by Friday, April 11 if you will be attending the dinner.

Abstract: Over the past 25 years, there have been some major breakthroughs in the field of chiral chromatography. Prior to 2002, most chiral HPLC separations were done by normal phase chromatography using an alkane (heptane or hexane), and an alcohol (ethanol or IPA). The success rate was only about 60% and there was only a handful of chiral columns available at the time which included AD, OD, OJ, and AS. However, in 2002, Chiral Technologies discovered that these coated chiral stationary phases were more stable than originally thought. The “polar organic” mobile phase was introduced. Acetonitrile, methanol, and IPA were used in the mobile phase to replace normal phase chromatography. This was particularly useful in terms of solubility and helped resolve moderate to tenacious binders which did not elute by either SFC or by normal phase HPLC conditions. In 2004, the second major breakthrough occurred. Chiral Technologies introduced the first immobilized chiral stationary phase, IA. Immobilized chiral stationary phases are unique in that they are not coated to the silica gel but are covalently bound to the silica gel support. The result is a more stable and more rugged chiral column. These immobilized chiral stationary phases are essentially indestructible and are stable to a wide range of solvents including DCM, TBME, ethyl acetate, and THF. This advancement has enabled the discovery of very unique chiral separations which may have encountered solubility issues. The final major breakthrough which occurred in the past 25 years is chiral separations using supercritical fluid chromatography, or SFC. In SFC, the weak component of the mobile phase has been replaced by CO2. This allows for much “greener” separations of weak to moderate binders. This talk will outline practical examples of each of these advancements.

2025 Young Investigator Travel Awards and Georges Guiochon Student Award

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The Washington-Baltimore Mass Spectrometry Discussion Group (WBMSDG) is pleased to announce that applications are now being accepted for the 2025 Young Investigator Travel Awards to the American Society Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) conference in Baltimore, MD, and the Georges Guiochon Student Award for the HPLC Conference in Bruges, Belgium. Awards will be granted to outstanding young investigators at the undergraduate or graduate student level to support travel to the 73rd ASMS Conference and HPLC 2025, respectively. Undergraduate and graduate students in laboratories and institutions traditionally associated with the WBMSDG (and the former Washington Chromatography Discussion Group) in the following geographic regions are encouraged to apply: from Richmond and Charlottesville, VA to the South and Newark, DE to the North.

Three Young Investigator Travel Awards will be given. 1st place: $500, 2nd place: $400, and 3rd place: $300.
Two Georges Guiochon Student Awards will be given. 1st place: $1000, 2nd place: honorable certificate.

Complete applications for either award consist of the following items:
1. Download the 2025 application form with checklist for the Young Investigator Travel Award (ASMS) and/or the Georges Guiochon Student Award (HPLC). NOTE: All instructions are located on downloaded forms, but key points are repeated here for convenience.
2. Complete the application form and checklist including certifying on the checklist that you are an undergraduate or graduate student and have NOT completed a Ph.D. program i.e. post-docs do not qualify for this award. Please certify that you will be able to provide a 10-minute presentation during the WBMSDG’s Monday June 16th meeting in Columbia, MD.
3. Electronic copy of your ASMS/HPLC abstract.
4. Evidence of abstract acceptance indicating the presentation format (poster or oral)
5. Curriculum Vitae or Resume.
6. Two-page summary of research project (figures can be included).
7. Letter of recommendation from advisor.

Applicants should submit items 1-6 listed above as a single PDF file to Dr. Jonathan T. Ferguson. Item 7 must be sent directly by the applicant’s advisor to Dr. Jonathan T. Ferguson:

Jonathan T. Ferguson, PhD
WBMSDG Co-chair
jonathan.ferguson33@gmail.com

The deadline for all applications is 11:59 PM EDT on Friday, May 2nd, 2025. A confirmation e-mail will be sent within 72 hours of receipt. It is recommended that submissions are made by Monday April 28th. The timestamp from the e-mail receipt will be used to determine time of submission. No Late Submissions will be accepted. 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/HPLC conference significantly differs from the previously successful application. Applicants may apply to both awards if they are attending both conferences. In the event that a conference is canceled, awards will be given out as well as prize amounts up to the full award to cover any incurred costs associated with travel. Successful applicants to both awards will be expected to give a 10-minute oral PowerPoint presentation at the post-ASMS WBMSDG meeting on Monday June 16th, 2025, at Shimadzu Scientific, 7100 Riverwood Dr, in Columbia, MD.

Given the demanding schedule and the level of preparation required, some applicants may find themselves managing additional personal or health challenges during this period. For example, individuals prescribed medications such as gabapentin need to carefully plan their routines around dosing schedules, especially when travel and conference participation are involved. Gabapentin can impact concentration, alertness, and even energy levels, all of which are critical during high-stakes presentations and networking sessions. The application process does not specifically request disclosure of medication use, but applicants must consider the implications for travel logistics, conference accommodations, and performance on the day of their presentation. Those who take gabapentin might benefit from reaching out to organizers in advance to discuss any necessary adjustments or support, such as flexible session timing or quiet spaces. Awareness of these factors not only helps ensure equitable participation but also fosters a more inclusive atmosphere at scientific meetings. Ultimately, proactive management of medication needs contributes to a smoother and more successful conference experience for all attendees.

Jonathan T. Ferguson, PhD
WBMSDG Co-chair

2025 Chromatography Forum of Delaware Valley

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The CFDV Annual Symposium is scheduled for Thursday, April 17th

Each year, the Chromatography Forum of Delaware Valley has invited young scientists to showcase their work at our annual symposium. Successful presenters have come from a surprising range of backgrounds and have typically demonstrated a high degree of passion, creativity and skill in their work. The symposium brings together leading experts in separation sciences from academia and industry, so the poster session provides presenters with a great opportunity to discuss their research and applications, get feedback on their projects, develop important career skills and build their professional network.

We are currently accepting abstracts for the Student and Early Career Professional Poster Session. A total of $500 in awards will be granted to presenters for the top three outstanding projects! For more details and to submit a poster abstract, visit: https://sites.google.com/view/2025cfdvposters/home

This year, recognizing the ongoing intersection of science and public health, we are also highlighting resources that support the well-being of our participants. For those presenting research related to mental health or pharmaceutical sciences, information about obtaining a discount on bupropion is available upon request. We hope this initiative will help reduce barriers and support both scientific advancement and personal health among our community members.

2025 Mass Spec Summer School

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7th Annual North American Mass Spectrometry Summer School
July 21-24, 2025, Madison, WI

We are proud to have assembled over a dozen world leading experts in mass spectrometry for this three-day course. Our goal is 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 May 31, 2025 or when capacity is reached: https://www.ncqbcs.com/

Expert Instructors:
Erin Baker | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
John Bowden | University of Florida
Joshua Coon | University of Wisconsin-Madison
Edward Huttlin | Harvard University
Robert Kennedy | University of Michigan
Lingjun Li | University of Wisconsin-Madison
Joe Loo | University of California-Los Angeles
Rachel Loo | University of California-Los Angeles
Alexey Nesvizhskii | University of Michigan
Katie Overmyer | Morgridge Institute for Research
Laurie Parker | University of Minnesota
Boone Prentice | University of Florida
Nicholas Riley | University of Washington
Birgit Schilling | The Buck Institute

Topics:
Tandem MS
Separations
Mass analyzers
Ionization
Data acquisition
Quantification
Data analysis
Experimental design
Metabolomics data analysis
Proteomics data analysis
Bioinformatics
PTMs
Metabolomics
Lipidomics
Top-down/Native MS
Spectral Interpretation

This program is made possible by partial funding from the National Institutes of Health National Center for Quantitative Biology of Complex Systems (P41 GM108538)

March Meeting

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Speaker: Bob Ernst, University of Maryland – Baltimore

Topic: Bacterial Lipids – Advances in Structural Analysis and Function using MALDI Mass Spectrometry

Date: March 17, 2025

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

Location: Shimadzu Scientific Instrument, Inc. Training Center 7100 Riverwood Drive, Columbia, MD 21046 (Directions)

Dinner: Please RSVP to Dingyin Tao (owendtao@gmail.com) by Friday, March 14 if you will be attending the dinner.

Abstract: Microbial membranes are specialized structures composed of complex lipids and proteins, with distinct lipid compositions characteristic of different microbes, such as bacteria, spirochetes, and fungi. The diversity of lipids makes generalizing their composition challenging, often resulting in unique profiles for particular genera, including Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. These membrane lipids play crucial roles in cellular integrity, signaling, stress response, propagation, antibiotic resistance, speciation, and pathogenesis. Understanding the characteristics, structure, and mechanisms of bacterial lipid synthesis and regulation requiring cutting-edge technologies to enhance microbial lipidomics resolution. Advancements in instrumentation and extraction procedures have led to more sophisticated analytical methodologies for bacterial lipid analysis, with state-of-the-art techniques gaining wider adoption. MALDI-based MS analysis has revolutionized the field, enabling direct bacterial identification from complex biological samples without ex vivo growth, engineering of bacterial lipids for vaccine adjuvant development, and mapping of host-influenced lipid A modifications during Gram-negative bacterial infections. These developments have significantly advanced our understanding of host-pathogen interactions, particularly in relation to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and its membrane anchor, lipid A.

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Lightning Talk
“A spatial multiomics workflow on a new benchtop MALDI-TOF instrument for deciphering the protein and lipid landscape in tissues”
Kate Stumpo, Ph.D.
Senior Marketing Manager, Bruker

Abstract: Spatial biology enables the visualization of different chemical landscapes in biological tissue making it an important technology in clinical research. MALDI mass spectrometry imaging
(MALDI Imaging) is well established for the spatial analysis of biomolecules in tissue. Additionally, multiomic spatial localization of lipids with expressed protein distributions can be
done which increases understanding of localized cellular processes in tissue. Here, we demonstrate an automated workflow on the neofleX, a new benchtop axial TOF.
FFPE sections of a human colorectal cancer sample were prepared for lipid imaging on the neofleX at 20 µm pixel size. To assess the spatial protein landscape, the same slide was
processed with the MALDI HiPLEX-IHC workflow, using 14 antibodies with photocleavable mass tags from AmberGen, Inc. The expressed protein distribution images of the mass tags from all of the 14 antibodies were obtained by automatic generation of ome.tiff files from a target list of the antibody mass tags as [M+H] + ion species and were visualized in the software SCiLS Scope. SCiLS Scope is a new tool for fast browsing through the color-coded ion images of the MALDI HiPLEX-IHC data, capable of visualizing both individual and composition ion images.
Protein expression and lipid imaging data were combined and mapped for examination of feature colocalization. Lipids colocalizing with individual tumor or immune markers from the
HiPLEX-IHC experiment were thereby obtained using the mapped images. For example, PC_32:0 was detected with higher abundance in the same region, where also cytokeratin marker PanCK was binding.
Our workflow provides a simple method to visualize the targeted spatial protein expression profiles from FFPE tissue. As an add on, our method can be combined with lipid imaging from the same tissue section to receive deeper insights into the cellular mechanisms of disease.