Because you have life sciences in every part of your life… 

October 14, 2021, 14:00 - 14:30 CEST

Dr. Oliver Klein, Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH), Germany

Cellular environment influence functional properties this cells a consequently on organ function. Since Virchow, the tissue assessment tissue (cellular pathology) has been an essential part of understanding disease progression, therapy response and regenerative processes. Recent evolutions of mass spectrometry imaging, promise an aid in molecular pathology for disease risk assessment and therapy stratification. Fiction or already reality?

October 26, 2021, 16:00 - 16:30 CEST

Prof. Dr. Uwe Karst, University of Münster, Institute of Inorganic and Analytical, Chemistry, Germany

As the percentage of tattoed persons in Europe and North America still increases, a significant number of issues including allergic reactions and inflammations is observed. Often, these issues are linked to the used pigments, and their identity mostly is not known to the tattooed persons. Therefore, analytical methods for the rapid and reliable identification of tattoo pigments in human skin samples have been developed. Organic pigments are characterized by laser desorption ionization-trapped ion mobility spectrometry-time of flight-mass spectrometry (LDI-timsTOF-MS) imaging, while inorganic pigments are detected by benchtop micro X-ray fluorescence (µXRF) imaging. In this webinar, the respective analytical methods and applications are presented. 

October 27, 2021, 16:00 - 16:30 CEST

Sofia K. Drakopoulou, Ph.D. Candidate, National & Kapodistrian, University of Athens, Greece

Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) has been recognized as food of high nutritional value, with many of its health properties derived from the fraction of phenolic compounds (PCs). Special attention has been paid to secoiridoids, compounds that contribute significantly in EVOOs related health claim (EU 432/2012), due to their high concentration levels in EVOOs. Secoiridoids subclass comprises a number of isomers. Their separation and identification are challenging and not always possible with the high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) -based methodologies applied so far, as they may pose identical chromatographic and spectral profiles.

In the present research work, a novel methodology utilizing Trapped Ion Mobility Spectrometry (TIMS) incorporated in Liquid Chromatography (LC)-HRMS workflows is being implemented and applied in olive oil, in order to separate and identify isomers detected on the phenolic fraction. TIMS introduces an additional, orthogonal dimension, that of ion mobility, which combined with HRMS-workflows increases the analytical depth-of-coverage and facilitates identification of isomers. Both targeted and untargeted approaches have been exploited, taking advantage of overall information retrieved from LC-TIMS-HRMS analysis. Integrated data treatment workflows in combination with chemometrics have also been applied, providing excellent analytical performance and prediction ability. Finally, noteworthy results are retrieved in olive oil samples derived from different variety and geographical origin, highlighting isomers as important authenticity markers.

October 28, 2021, 16:00 - 16.30 CEST

Dr. Rüdiger Schumacher, Federal Criminal Police Office, KT 23 Gunshot residues, Wiesbaden, Germany

In the recent decades the detection of gunshot residues (GSR) solely relied on detecting microscopic inorganic particles containing a characteristic elemental profile of heavy metals (e.g. PbBaSb) while organic traces were widely omitted. Nowadays modern ammunitions use heavy metal free formulations.  This makes detection of GSR solely based on methods like SEM/EDS very challenging. Organic gunshot residues (OGSR) originating from the propellant of a cartridge can be detected by LC-MS. They can support traditional GSR evidence to eludicate gun related crimes. OGSR is currently topic of ongoing efforts in international forensic research.

November 10, 2021, 10:00 - 10:30 CET

Prof. Dr. Jens Brockmeyer, Analytical Food Chemistry, Department of Food Chemistry, University of Stuttgart, Germany

The authenticity and safety of food are major aspects to ensure consumer trust in food products. Globalized food production and novel foods are constantly challenging the integrity of food. In this webinar, we provide an introduction to food proteomics as a novel tool in food authenticity and food allergy testing.

November 22, 2021, 10:00 - 10:30 CET

Viktoria Lindemann, MSc, University of Münster, Institute for Food Chemistry, Germany

Mycotoxins are secondary metabolites of micro fungi, which are ubiquitously spread in the environment and can cause intoxications, infections and allergies in humans. Whereas the exposure through food is quite well described, indoor exposure assessment is not possible as data on the occurrence of mycotoxins on mouldy building material and indoor environments is rare. At the Institute of Food Chemistry of the University of Münster, we develop analytical methods for the analysis of mycotoxins in various sample matrices applying different mass spectrometric techniques. In this webinar, we introduce certain approaches, which can improve the estimation of mycotoxin exposure, using descriptive examples.

November 23, 2021, 16:00 - 16:30 CET

Prof. Nikolaos S. Thomaidis, National & Kapodistrian, University of Athens, Greece

Matrix-assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization Mass Spectrometry Time-Of-Flight (MALDI-TOF MS) has proved to be a powerful MS technique to address crucial authenticity challenges. Combining speed, reliability and straightforward analysis, MALDI-TOF-MS have led to its supremacy for complex assessment of food authenticity studies, like dairy products fraud, not only to prevent consumers’ health, but also to meet the established legislative frameworks.

Feta is a worldwide recognized Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) Greek cheese, highly ranked in the global market due to its special sensory characteristics. Although Feta is legally produced from sheep milk or a mixture of sheep and goat milk (the latter up to 30%), it may be subjected to the unlabeled addition of cow milk, due to its lower price combined with the reduced availability of ovine milk.

In this research work, an integrated untargeted protein-based workflow is presented, to address authenticity challenges in PDO feta cheese. Exploiting full capabilities of MALDI-TOF-MS profiling and chemometrics, discriminative models were built for the discrimination of authentic feta cheese, reaching the detection down to 1% adulteration level (cow milk). Potential markers were detected in authentic feta and white cheeses (prepared from cow milk), attributed to specific animal origin. The discriminative models showed high predictive ability, introducing a reliable approach in routine analysis. The methodology was successfully applied in detection of cow milk in sheep yoghurt, demonstrating that MALDI-TOF-MS can be applied as a reliable and rapid screening tool in the detection of dairy products adulteration.

November 24, 2021, 16:00 - 16:30 CET

Christian Vidal, Chemistry Department, State Criminal Investigation Office of Lower Saxony, Hannover, Germany

Measurements of drugs of abuse in blood in a forensic lab require highest reliablity with regard to identification and quantification of the compounds in question. After economical evaluation, the analytical setup of the forensic lab was completely rearranged, now processing up to 8000 blood samples each year including a multiple of different measurements. Drug screening is no longer based on immunoassays lacking selectivity. It is now performed on LC/MS-Toxtyper systems directly providing quantification of five drugs as key compounds. Analysis of THC and further drugs such as neuroleptics and sedatives is carried out by LC/MS/MS. Recently, a robotic system for sample preparation has been put into service transforming the laboratory process into a fully scalable application for high-throughput measurements.

November 25, 2021, 16:00 - 16:30 CET

Dr. Eric van Beelen, Bruker Nederland BV, Netherlands

The best way to characterize the impurities of your biologic

A lot of the latest vaccines and other pharmaceutical products consists of biological molecules. The production process of these biopharmaceuticals causes process-related impurities like host cell proteins (HCPs). These HCPs can interfere with product stability or cause safety risks to patients and removal of these impurities is an essential part of the downstream process. LC-MS based approaches are excellent tools to monitor the purification process as these provide excellent sensitivity together with protein specific identifications. 

We present highly sensitive HCP identifications using NIST mAb reference material as sample. A high number of protein identifications is shown using the Bruker timsTOF Pro 2 utilizing parallel accumulation-serial fragmentation (PASEF^®) functionality with the new VIP-HESI source. In addition, the gain in confidence provided by reliable Collisional Cross Section (CCS) values of identified peptides provided by trapped ion mobility spectrometry (TIMS) technology is shown.

November 30, 2021, 16:00 - 16:30 CET

Anna Abrahamsson, MSc, Danish Center for Neonatal Screening, Clinical Mass Spectrometry, Copenhagen, Denmark

The research, based on UHPLC, high resolution accurate mass MS/MS analysis of dried blood spot (DBS), will highlight the importance of optimized analytical methods for the generation of high quality data for large scale metabolomics. Further by using ion-mobility, the quality of data are significantly improved compared to regular Q-Tof analysis.

December 2, 2021, 16:00 - 16:30 CET 

Charlotte Brun, Laboratoire de Spectrométrie de Masse BioOrganique, Université de Strasbourg, France

HepaRG cells are the most appropriate and versatile cell system surrogate for primary human hepatocytes1. They exhibit unique properties: self-renewal of progenitor cells, full differentiation toward hepatocytes or cholangiocytes, and an ability for retro-differentiation toward a proliferative state. To unravel the molecular mechanisms controlling such plasticity and HepaRG transdifferentiation abilities, the proteomes of several cell lines derived from HepaRG progenitors were compared.

December 15, 2021, 15:00 - 15:30 CET 

Dr. Daniel Krug, Dr. Jake Haeckl, Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS), Saarbrücken, Germany

Untargeted mass spectrometry (MS) workflows have become the frontline methodology for drug discovery from natural products extracts. However, determining the structural characteristics is often laborious and time-consuming.

Improvements in tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) data acquisition and downstream analysis pipelines have enabled rapid determination of structural features of natural products, enabling both the discovery of new compounds and annotation of previously identified compounds, drastically streamlining the discovery process.
In this webinar, we will compare traditional and optimized MS/MS approaches for obtaining quality structural information at the earliest stages of the natural product drug discovery process.

For further information, please contact:

Anne Kropp
Bruker Daltonics GmbH & Co. KG
Fahrenheitstrasse 4
28359 Bremen
anne.kropp@bruker.com