2023 Emerging Investigators

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There are times in your life when you question what decision caused you to take a certain path or how you ended up where you are. You may even be asked or wonder how you became involved in mass spectrometry. For many researchers, the answer is the great breadth mass spectrometry offers, allowing us to perform science in the topics we love or even pivot throughout our careers to try multiple areas. Thus, mass spectrometry has a place for all science lovers, whether you enjoy analyzing small or large molecules, performing gas-phase ion chemistry, developing hardware or software, or coupling it with other analytical techniques. You can then take your developments (or use those from others) to perform applications in medicine, life sciences, environmental science, and microbiology, just to name a few. Another remarkable aspect of mass spectrometry has also always been the amazing researchers it encompasses. Both the scientists currently performing mass spectrometry and past generations have always been extremely thoughtful and helpful as showcased by the #TeamMassSpec questions and answers on social media and the efforts put forth by many attending and presenting poster and oral presentations at conferences. We also know that as we advance in our careers, the more we put into our community and showcase the work of our younger generation, the further mass spectrometry can and will progress. Thus, we are delighted to highlight work from 12 early career researchers from across the United States, Canada, and Europe in this Emerging Investigators Focus Issue. These investigators from academia, government, pharmaceuticals, and medical centers have already demonstrated great potential to make important contributions to their respective areas of research and become future leaders within their fields. For this issue, authors were invited to contribute peer-reviewed articles based on recommendations from the Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editors, Editorial Board of JASMS, ASMS Board of Directors, and other prominent mass spectrometrists. Through their manuscripts, these early career scientists have demonstrated their immense talents in an extensive range of mass spectrometry science including mass spectrometry imaging, metabolomics, lipidomics, proteomics, protein–lipid interactions, dissociation mechanisms, untargeted data analysis, clinical applications, and environmental science. Brief biographical sketches of the contributing authors, highlighting their diverse academic backgrounds, are listed below. We would like to thank each author for their contribution and look forward to watching their careers progress in the decades to come. Please look forward to seeing more highlights of our early scientists in following JASMS issues and in next year’s Emerging Investigators Focus Issue.

Dr. John A. Bowden is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physiological Sciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Florida. He received his Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry under the mentorship of Professor Richard A. Yost at the University of Florida in 2009. After a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at Saint Louis University, he joined the National Institute of Standards and Technology in 2011, working at the Hollings Marine Laboratory in Charleston, SC, where he would serve as a Research Chemist until 2018. He joined the University of Florida in 2018, where he also has a joint appointment in the Department of Chemistry and has affiliations with the Center for Environmental and Human Toxicology and the Department of Environmental Engineering. To date, he has coauthored 112 publications. His interdisciplinary research program exists at the intersection of chemistry, engineering, toxicology, and exposomics. To achieve this, he utilizes mass spectrometry to study the distribution, fate and transport, transformation, management and remediation, and biointegration of chemicals of emerging concern (e.g., PFAS) and their subsequent toxicological impact, the latter by which is achieved using novel lipidomic and metabolomic workflows.

Dr. Colleen Crouch is a tenure-track assistant professor in the Mechanical, Aerospace, and Biomedical Engineering Department at the University of Tennessee. She was a postdoctoral fellow in the Interventional Radiology Department at UT MD Anderson and earned her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan. As an undergraduate at the Georgia Institute of Technology, she began her research in cardiovascular health and was first introduced to mass spectrometry during her postdoctoral training with Dr. Erik Cressman. Her background in material science and biomedical engineering provide a unique approach to her research by combining engineering concepts and physiology.

Thanh Do is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He received his B.S. in Chemistry and Mathematics from Gonzaga University in 2010. He earned his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 2015, under the mentorship of Prof. Michael Bowers. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois in Urbana–Champaign with Prof. Jonathan Sweedler before joining the Tennessee faculty as an Assistant Professor in Fall 2018. His research has two primary objectives. The first is to develop fast and sensitive MS-based techniques and biophysical methods suitable for simultaneously assessing and predicting the structure, topology, composition, and dynamics of exotic species in the gas phase. His laboratory specializes in utilizing various techniques such as ion mobility mass spectrometry, nuclear magnetic resonance, X-ray crystallography, and computational modeling to determine atomic structures and investigate the interactions between conformers and oligomeric states of metabolites, macrocyclic peptides, and amyloid oligomers. The second overarching aim is to use these techniques for biological applications, including measuring endogenous, intact, and disease-related peptides and proteins from volume-limited biological samples. With these measurements, he aims to elucidate the roles of posttranslational modifications on structures and functional consequences. He was awarded an ASMS Research Award in 2022.

Dr. Jennifer Geddes-McAlister is an Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in the Proteomics of Fungal Disease in One Health in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Guelph. Her lab applies mass spectrometry-based proteomics to investigate host–pathogen interactions with a focus on One Health approaches to overcoming fungal disease. She completed her B.Sc. and M.Sc. at the University of Lethbridge, her Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology with Dr. Jim Kronstad from the University of British Columbia, and a postdoctoral fellowship funded by the Alexander von Humboldt foundation at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry (Germany) with Prof. Dr. Matthias Mann. She is Director of the Bioinformatics Graduate Programs at the University of Guelph, President of the Canadian National Proteomics Network, cofounder of the Canadian Proteomics and Artificial Intelligence Consortium, and founder of “Moms in Proteomics” an initiative dedicated to recognizing and supporting mothers in STEM.

Emanuela Gionfriddo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry of the University of Toledo (OH, USA). She earned her B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Chemistry at the University of Calabria in Italy, graduating summa cum laude, and obtained her Ph.D. at the same institution in Prof. Giovanni Sindona laboratory. She then joined Prof. Pawliszyn’s group at the University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada) in 2014 as a Post-Doctoral Fellow and manager of the Gas-Chromatography section of the Industrially Focused Analytical Research Laboratory (InFAReL), and within three years, became a Research Associate. Her research program focuses on understanding the partitioning of environmental pollutants in heterogeneous phases, including biological specimens, by using advanced separation and mass spectrometry tools and by directly coupling microextraction to mass spectrometry. Her laboratory is funded by the National Science Foundation through a CAREER Award, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and several industrial partnerships. Emanuela is one of the founding members of the Dr. Nina McClelland Laboratory for Water Chemistry and Environmental Analysis at The University of Toledo and she is appointed to the Ohio Attorney General Yost’s Environmental Council of Advisors.

Kallol Gupta is an Assistant Professor at Yale School of Medicine in the Department of Cell Biology and Nanobiology Institute. He completed his Ph.D. at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, under the guidance of Prof. P. Balaram. During his doctoral research, Kallol delved into the depths of the ocean to study the venoms of deep-sea snails. His work focused on understanding how these snails maximize their genomic space to produce a diverse array of toxins, which they use to immobilize their prey by targeting specific ion channels and receptors. Through studying the effects of these toxins, Kallol developed a keen interest in the fascinating world of membrane proteins. Consequently, after finishing his Ph.D., in 2014, Kallol joined the laboratory of Prof. Carol Robinson at the University of Oxford as a fellow of the 1851 Royal Commission to study membrane proteins. There, he developed a key mass spectrometric platforms that enabled the identification of bound endogenous lipids and provided a mechanistic molecular understanding of how lipids can regulate the organizational assemblies of membrane proteins. In 2019, Kallol established his own lab at Yale University. The focus of his research group is to unravel how spatiotemporal organization of proteins and lipids within biological membranes regulate specific cellular signaling pathways in both healthy and diseased states. To achieve this, his lab combines mass spectrometry with synthetic chemistry, chemical biology, single-molecule imaging, electron microscopy, as well as various cell-based and in vitro biochemical assays. By integrating these interdisciplinary approaches, Kallol’s lab aims to develop quantitative molecular membrane biology platforms.

Alan Jarmusch is director of the Metabolomics Core Facility at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. There, he is responsible for metabolomics research at NIEHS and established the Trans-NIH Metabolomics Core for the NIH’s Intramural Research Program. His research focus is mass spectrometry applications in the biomedical and environmental sciences. Jarmusch earned a B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2011. He earned a Ph.D. in Chemistry with a specialization in Mass Spectrometry from Purdue University in 2016, under the supervision of Prof. R. Graham Cooks in the Department of Chemistry & Center for Analytical Instrument Development. Jarmusch then completed his postdoctoral training in 2020 under the supervision of Prof. Pieter C. Dorrestein at the University of California─San Diego, Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences & Collaborative Mass Spectrometry Innovation Center. In 2018, he was awarded a Postdoctoral Career Development Award from the American Society for Mass Spectrometry.

Dr. John Kellie is currently an Associate Director in the Bioanalysis, Immunogenicity, and Biomarkers group at GSK. John received his B.S. in Biochemistry from Indiana University and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Northwestern studying under Dr. Neil Kelleher. He was a Post-Doctoral Scientist at Eli Lilly and Company where he developed methods for intact protein quantitation of a Parkinson’s Disease biomarker from human brain tissue. At GSK, John utilizes mass spectrometry for development of novel bioanalytical methods for biotherapeutic and protein quantitation from preclinical and clinical samples, with a focus on intact protein and large mass quantitation for pharmacokinetics, catabolism, biotransformation, and product quality attribute support.

Frederik Lermyte is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the Technical University of Darmstadt in Germany. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Antwerp, where his work focused on the use of ion mobility spectrometry and electron-based fragmentation in structural biology. He then performed postdoctoral studies at the University of Warwick, where he used ultrahigh-resolution tandem mass spectrometry and synchrotron spectromicroscopy to study neurodegenerative diseases, and at the University of Liège. He founded his group in Darmstadt in 2020 and uses native mass spectrometry, ion mobility spectrometry, hydrogen–deuterium exchange, and electron-based fragmentation to study biomolecules. His research focuses on both fundamental method development in mass spectrometry-based structural biology, and the application of these methods to proteins relevant to human health and disease.’

Laura-Isobel McCall is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at San Diego State University. She earned a B.Sc. from McGill University in Microbiology and Immunology, performing research with Dr. Martin Olivier and Dr. Greg Matlashewski. She continued on to obtain her Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from McGill University in 2013, mentored by Dr. Greg Matlashewski. She pursued postdoctoral training at the University of California San Francisco and the University of California San Diego, in Dr. James McKerrow’s group. At UCSD, she learned metabolomics techniques by collaborating with Dr. Pieter Dorrestein and his group. She established her laboratory in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Oklahoma in 2017. In 2020, she was selected as one of Chemical and Engineering News’ Talented 12: one of the “dozen young rising stars who are using chemical know-how to change the world”. She was also selected in 2021 as a “Future leader in the field of host-microbe interactions” by Infection and Immunity and a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Investigator in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease. She moved to San Diego State University in August 2023. Her research focuses on using spatially resolved metabolomics to understand host–pathogen-microbiome interactions, to guide drug development and biomarker discovery.

Jesse G. Meyer is an Assistant Professor at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry in his home state at the University of Minnesota. He then moved to the University of California San Diego to get his Ph.D. in the Chemistry Department. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging and then the University of Wisconsin Madison. He was named among the Rising Stars in Proteomics and Metabolomics by the Journal of Proteome Research in 2021, and received the ASMS Research Award in 2023. His group does research on human disease by developing and applying techniques at the interface of omics and data science.

Boone Prentice is Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Florida. He received his B.S. in Chemistry from Longwood University (Farmville, VA), and completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry at Purdue University (West Lafayette, IN) under the mentorship of Prof. Scott McLuckey studying gas-phase ion/ion reactions and ion trap instrumentation. He then completed his postdoctoral work in the Department of Biochemistry at Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN) as an NIH NRSA fellow under the guidance of Prof. Richard Caprioli before joining the faculty at UF in 2018. He was awarded an NIH Focused Technology Research and Development R01 grant in 2020 and a JDRF Innovation Award in 2023 to support his research developing gas-phase reactions and imaging mass spectrometry technologies to study the molecular pathology of diabetes, infectious disease, neurodegeneration, and neuropharmacology. He was also awarded the 2022 Young Investigator Award from Eli Lilly and Company, which is an unsolicited award given annually by Eli Lilly’s Analytical Chemistry Academic Contacts Committee to recognize a “rising star” in analytical chemistry, and was highlighted as a 2023 Young Investigator in (Bio-)Analytical Chemistry by Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry.