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Keynote Speaker: Livia Schiavinato Eberlin Ph.D.
Professor of Surgery
Baylor College of Medicine
Topic: Medical Mass Spectrometry: Current state & opportunities at the TMC
Talk Summary: The use of mass spectrometry in medicine has been increasingly pursued due to its unparalleled capabilities of providing direct and fast molecular analysis of clinical samples. This emerging field of medical mass spectrometry offers the exciting opportunity to incorporate molecular data into clinical practice to expedite clinical decision making and thus improve diagnosis and patient care. In this seminar, Dr. Eberlin will discuss developments and applications of direct mass spectrometry techniques for use in medicine. Key operational principles, depth of molecular data, and the analytical and diagnostic performance metrics achieved with these techniques for disease detection will be discussed to provide a critical assessment of their capabilities and potential uses within the context of routine clinical practice.Dr. Eberlin presentation will also describe her lab’s efforts in ongoing clinical studies employing the MasSpec Pen Technology to guide clinical decision making at the Texas Medical Center. Challenges and opportunities in implementing the technology into clinical workflows will also be discussed.
Keynote Speaker: Ruben Luo Ph.D
Assistant Professor of Pathology
Stanford University
Topic: Exploration of High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry Protein Identification Applications in Clinical Diagnostics
Talk Summary: Protein markers are being increasingly measured in clinical laboratories for disease diagnosis. With the majority of measurements focusing on quantity, the structural characteristics of protein markers are typically not acquired. These additional characteristics could aid in the diagnosis and treatment of patients by providing more specific and accurate information.
Structural characterization of hemoglobin (Hb) variants, particularly the mutant forms of α- and β-subunits, is of significant value in the clinical diagnosis of hemoglobinopathy. The conventional methods for the identification of Hb variants in clinical laboratories can be inadequate due to the lack of detailed structural characterization. High-resolution mass spectrometry (HR-MS) has been demonstrated for superior analytical performance in the identification of Hb variants.
Monoclonal gammopathies are plasma cell dyscrasias with a significant prevalence, for which monoclonal immunoglobulins in serum samples are diagnostic markers, i.e., M-proteins and monoclonal free light chains (mFLCs). The common laboratory tests for M-proteins are unable to characterize the proteoforms of M-proteins. HR-MS is ideal for characterizing the proteoforms of M-proteins and top-down approach can extract monoclonal immunoglobulin signals and remove polyclonal immunoglobulin background. Therefore, HR-MS was employed to study the glycosylation patterns of M-proteins to broaden the understanding of monoclonal gammopathies.In addition, HR-MS bottom-up approach can also be applied to protein identification such as amyloidosis typing for tissue specimens.