Next level imaging Mass Spectrometry: Single cells in focus with SpatialOMx

This webinar took place on May 31, 2020

Webinar Overview

Studying molecular profiles at single cell resolution is imperative to understand how spatially structured communities of individual cells act and interact in the context of their networked environment.  Label free MALDI imaging has been widely recognized as a valuable tool for identifying variety of compounds including metabolites, lipids and proteins from tissue.

However, due to the lack of molecular sensitivity and specificity, it’s still challenging to achieve single cell resolution at an appreciable dynamic range of analyte.  In addition, the analysis of large data generated from millions of different cells can be challenging and time-consuming. 

Here, I want to present work we are doing with MALDI-2 on timsTOF fleX to increase sensitivity which, in turn, enables us to obtain single cell molecular profiles (and images) at 5-10um resolution.

The image guided spatialOMx workflow also helps us to identify region of specific cell phenotype from the MALDI images, which then can be collected using laser microdissection (LMD) for 4D-proteomics study in the same timsTOF fleX instrument. It is truly next level imaging on a single instrument.  

Speaker

Prof. Dr. Ron M.A. Heeren
Maastricht University, Division Head Imaging MS, Maastricht, Netherlands

Prof. Dr. Ron M.A. Heeren obtained a PhD degree in technical physics in 1992 at the University of Amsterdam on plasma-surface interactions. He was the research group leader at FOM-AMOLF for macromolecular ion physics and biomolecular imaging mass spectrometry. In 2001 he was appointed professor at the chemistry faculty of Utrecht University lecturing on the physical aspects of biomolecular mass spectrometry. In the period 1995-2015 he has been developing new approaches towards high spatial resolution and high throughput molecular imaging mass spectrometry using Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry and Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption and Ionization.

He was the research director for emerging technologies within the Netherlands Proteomics Centre from 2008-2013. In 2012 he co-founded Omics2Image B.V., a company focused on bringing innovative ion detector technology to the analytical market. In 2014 he was appointed as distinguished professor and Limburg Chair at the University of Maastricht. He is one of the scientific directors of M4I, the Maastricht MultiModal Molecular Imaging institute and heads the division of imaging MS. He is the elected treasurer and executive board member of the international mass spectrometry foundation and serves on various editorial boards of peer-reviewed journals. He is and has been active in many professional societies to advance mass spectrometric research, education and professionalization.

His publication record encompasses an excess of 300 peer-reviewed publications and his H-index is 57 (Google scholar, August 2020). His academic research interests are the fundamental studies of the energetics of macromolecular systems, conformational studies of non-covalently bound protein complexes, translational imaging research, high-throughput bioinformatics and the development and validation of new mass spectrometry based proteomic imaging techniques for the life sciences.
 

 

For Research Use Only. Not for use in clinical diagnostic procedures.