Prof Gérard Hopfgartner Special Seminar
We are delighted to host Prof Gérard Hopfgartner (University of Geneva) at the University of Auckland for a special seminar on Friday 16th August, 2024, at 12pm. The seminar will be held at the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences Grafton campus, room 503-024. Professor Hopfgartner is in the department of Analytical and Inorganic Chemistry of the University of Geneva and head of the Life Sciences Mass Spectrometry Group. His research interests focus on the development of novel mass spectrometry approaches with and without chromatography in the field of life sciences with emphasis on separation sciences, mass spectrometry, bioanalysis, metabolism, metabolomics, toxicology, lipidomics and analytical proteomics.
See below for details of his talk. Please contact Gus Grey ac.grey@auckland.ac.nz if you would like to meet with Prof Hopfgartner on Friday 16th.
Chromatography Coupled to Multimodal Mass Spectrometry for the Characterization of Endogenous and Exogenous Metabolites in Biological Samples
One of the current challenge in metabolomics is to identify and quantify more informative disease biomarkers, aid the design or development of improved treatments, better assess health out-comes and monitor exposure to exogenous chemicals. These actions are vital tools for drug discovery, therapeutics, and life quality. Analytes of interest are polar metabolites such as acids, amino acids, nucleotides or sugars and lipids. These two main classes of molecules differ according to their chemical space: molecular weight, polarity, pKa, concentration dynamic range. The hyphenation of chromatography with high resolution atmospheric ionisation tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) is particularly of interest as it provides orthogonal selectivity. However, a generic LC-MS setup is insufficient to cover the large chemical space of the analytes and isomers of interest calling for extended separation and mass spectrometric approaches. Multimodal mass spectrometry is one approach which performs multiple MS experiments, such as differential mobility spectrometry or tandem mass spectrometry with fragmentation induced by a gas, electrons or photons induced, in a single LC-MS analysis. In this way enhanced structural information or improved selectivity can be obtained without increasing the total analysis time. Various applications of multimodal mass spectrometry will be presented for the analysis of metabolites, pesticides, pharmaceuticals in human plasma or urine study samples and food samples.