Metabolomics Winter School Opening Lecture

Monday, Jan. 27

Lecture begins at 5 p.m.

A reception follows at 6 p.m. Please RSVP on the form below for the reception only.

Room 3161/62 Clinical and Translational Research Building

Lecture: Advances in gas-phase separations for multi-omics analysis

The diversity of biomolecules (especially metabolites) challenges the current liquid-phase separation approaches but opens the door for alternatives and complementary approaches.  Gas-phase separation approaches, such as ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) offers advantages, in terms of precision and predictability. In the conventional drift-tube ion mobility spectrometry ions are separated based on the balance between the force of electric field that propagates ions and the collision with a buffer gas. The measured collision cross-section, a property of the ion and buffer gas, can be predicted computationally by quantum chemical or deep learning approaches. Despite the history of IMS its adaptation to mainstream metabolomics and proteomics analyses started only recently due to the availability of commercial instruments. These instruments, however, have a relatively low-to-moderate resolving power. In this presentation, we will show recent development at PNNL to enhance the resolving power of IMS using Structures for Lossless Ion Manipulations (SLIM) devices and its application in metabolite and peptide analyses. SLIM deploy traveling-wave electric fields applied to a path length that can be effectively extended to more than 2000 m. The extended path length offers unprecedented resolving power that allows the separation of isomers that previously were unattainable.

Yehia M. Ibrahim

Yehia M. Ibrahim, Scientist, Biological Sciences Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Dr. Ibrahim grew up in Egypt, where he earned his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in chemistry from Cairo University. He earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in 2003 and spent one year as a Postdoctoral fellow at VCU before coming to PNNL in 2005. Dr. Ibrahim has authored over 90 journal papers and is an inventor of 24 US patents in the fields of mass spectrometry (MS) and ion mobility spectrometry (IMS). His research is focused on the development of new mass spectrometry and ion mobility-based technologies to improve the sensitivity and the specificity of ion mobility and mass spectrometry. His work at PNNL involved developing the high-pressure ion funnel, ion funnel trap, and Structures for Lossless Ion Manipulations (SLIM). Along with a team of scientists from PNNL his work has led to the development of a new ultrasensitive platform for biomolecule analysis for which PNNL was awarded the 2013 R&D 100. This platform is currently licensed and commercialized by Agilent Technologies (6560 IMS-QTOF). Currently, he is leading the research efforts for the development of Structures for Lossless Ion Manipulations (SLIM) technology which was also awarded the 2017 R&D 100. His team was also awarded the 2018 Federal Laboratory Consortium Award for Excellence in Technology Transfer of SLIM technology to MOBILion Systems Inc. In 2019, Dr. Ibrahim was awarded the PNNL Inventor of the Year and the Distinguished Inventor of Battelle. He is currently the principal investigator on two NIH grants to develop the next-generation ion mobility platforms.

Register for Jan. 27 Reception Following Metabolomics Winter School Lecture