Associate Professor, Director of Mass Spectrometry Facility, Department of Chemistry, University of Warwick. After obtaining my PhD in chemistry from Leicester University, I first worked with Prof Thornalley at Essex University as a PDRA (2002-2005). I then moved to Warwick as a PDRA with Prof Challis. From 2008, I have been managing the MS facility at Warwick Chemistry. This is one of the largest in the UK, comprising more than 21 mass spectrometers. During 2013-2014, I was on secondment to the University of Oxford as the Head of the Clinical Pharmacology Laboratory in the Department of Tropical Medicine, during which time I had over-all responsibility of a large facility, including 6 different LC-MSMS instruments and 15 staff focussing on large scale clinical samples analysis. I also oversaw the lab’s acquisition of full ISO15189 accreditation status, consequently all method development and analytical results are compliant with FDA guidelines.
Research interest:
My research is focused on mass spectrometry-based metabolomics and proteomics, their applications in areas including natural product drug discovery, drug metabolism, disease biomarker discovery and environmental analysis.
1. Bioactive natural product discovery from microorganism and plant, using a combination of liquid chromatography, high resolution high accuracy MS, MS/MS, 1D and 2D NMR techniques, we carry out dereplication, identification, purification and structure elucidation of novel bioactive natural products.
2. Drug mechanism of action and metabolism analysis (ADME, pharmacokinetics), using stable isotope labelled drugs to investigate drug metabolism in both in vitro and in vivo systems, metabolites are identified through high-resolution LC-MS/MS profiling, both the original drug and their metabolites can be quantified in MRM mode with triple quadrupole mass spectrometer for pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic evaluation.
3. Disease biomarker discovery and validation (for diagnosis, therapeutic and pharmacodynamics study) using comparative metabolomic and proteomic approach.
4. Environmental analysis of both organic and inorganic pollutants (agrochemicals such as pesticide, herbicides, veterinary antimicrobials, animal growth hormones, their leakage into the environment; human medicine and breakdown products entering the environment from wastewater treatment plant) and environment originated antimicrobial resistance.
My role in the project ResPharm:
I will be responsible for the identification and quantification of pharmaceuticals, including antimicrobials, from environmental samples collected in this project. We will initially use non-targeted metabolite profiling approach with high resolution Q-TOF mass spectrometer LC-MSMS to identify what is present in these samples, this will be followed by quantitative analysis in MRM mode with triple quad mass spectrometer LC-MSMS.
My team:
Senior Technician: Lynette Walsh
PDRAs: Dr John Sidda, Dr Chiara Borsetto
PhD students: Nazia Auckloo, Lobna Hudifa and Nestoras Kargios
