9th Annual University of Auckland Mass Spectrometry Symposium Report

​This year’s University of Auckland Mass Spectrometry Symposium was held on December 4^th in building 507 at the Grafton campus. It featured 12 scientific presentations, including 2 keynote addresses, and a wrap up of new instrumentation, methods and techniques from our mass spectrometry technologists. Over ninety registrants attended, predominantly from across the University, but including other tertiary institutions and PROs.

In the opening address, Associate Professor Nichollas Scott (University of Melbourne) gave an excellent presentation showing how his lab has developed new techniques to characterise protein glycosylation modifications using antbodies for enrichment and advanced mass spectrometry with increasingly energetic ion fragmentation as a method for discerning subtly different chemistries. Our afternoon session was opened by keynote speaker Dr Evelyne Maes, a proteomics specialist from New Zealand’s new PRO, the Bioeconomy Science Institute. Following an overview of the recent changes in the government sponsored research organisations, Evelyne gave several examples of how advanced mass spectrometry with ion mobility is being used at BSI to build resilient food systems in New Zealand.

Other scientific highlights of the day included presentations from A/P Lisa Pilkington on monitoring population health using waste water sampling from across Aotearoa, imaging of metabolites in shark cartilage, the development of diagnostic tests for hormone imbalance in newborns using steroid mass spectrometry, characterising the chemical constituents of magic mushrooms, and the use of chemical proteomics to identify new drug targets for neuroinflammation. We were pleased for many students to present their work, including two PhD student presentation from AUT.

A big thank you to the organising committee (Daniel Conole, Susan Richter, Chris Pook, Kalita Prangnell, Gus Grey) for all of their mahi putting together an excellent speaker and networking program. We are grateful for support from Te Puna Tiketike the Research and Innovation Office at Waipapa Taumata Rau for supporting the symposium, and the FoS ShaRE Mass Spectrometry platform for sponsoring the raffle of University merchandise, which was won by Tony Chen and Raahul Sharma.