Personal Statement

Our central philosophy is that compelling biological and clinical questions drive innovation through development, optimization and adaption of proteomic technologies, functional analysis and large-scale data handling. The primary research in our lab focuses 1) on understanding the molecular mechanism underlying acute and chronic disease and treatment therapies and 2) in the development of clinically robust circulating biomarkers including detailed exosome constituents. My laboratory is well known for our analytes and process control and rigor. We specialize in developing robust technological pipelines to precisely quantify proteins, isoforms and their posttranslational modifications (PTM) in disease pathways. This includes understanding interplay between competing PTMs such as O-GlcNAc and phosphorylation and multiple oxidative modifications. Our group uses automation in sample preparation to allow for high-throughput and robust mass spectrometry (MS) analysis, which includes discovery and the novel approach, SWATH (DIA), which allows complete and reproducible analysis of thousands of proteins in hundreds of samples. As well, absolute quantification of key targets can be accomplished quickly and cost effectively via ultrasensitive ELISA platforms (e.g., Quanterix) or multiple reaction monitoring assays, a targeted MS-based quantitative method, for a tracking multidimensional signaling pathway interplay.