Pushing the limits of multiplexed single-cell proteomics

Single-cell proteomics has recently emerged as a promising new field capable of elucidating the vast cellular heterogeneity that defines biology, disease, and therapeutic response.

However, it is also extremely challenging, since accurate identification and quantification must be performed across entire proteomes from vanishingly small amounts of material analyzed over short, single-shot LC-MS runs. This necessitates extremes of performance from nano-flow LC and MS systems and their optimization for maximal sensitivity, speed, and depth.

This webcast will cover a roadmap for single-cell proteomics parameter optimization for human immune cell profiling using the tandem mass tag (TMT) multiplexed SCoPE-MS methodology on Thermo Scientific™ Vanquish™ Neo UHPLC System and Thermo Scientific™ Orbitrap Exploris™ 480 MS platforms. It will also describe recent advances in TMT complement ion quantification using on-the-fly phased spectrum decomposition method (SDM or phi-SDM) super-resolution signal processing via GPU-compute box architecture and complement ion data analysis within the Thermo Scientific™ ProteomeDiscover™ software framework.

These TMT complement ion approaches may help usher in a new era of highly accurate multiplexing in next-gen deep proteomics using wide-window or data-independent acquisition (DIA) methods. You will learn:

• The advantage of performing TMT-based single-cell proteomics
• Latest MS advances to benefit single-cell proteomics
• Single-cell proteomics MS parameter optimization for human immune cell profiling

Presenter: Dr. David H. Perlman (Biopharma Consultant, Merck Exploratory Science Center Cambridge)

David H. Perlman has spent 25 years at the interface between Biomedicine and Mass Spectrometry. He holds a Ph.D. in Virology from BU School of Medicine and gained expertise in mass spectrometry and proteomics as a post-doctoral fellow with Profs. Catherine Costello and Mark McComb at the Boston Medical Center.

He went on to found the Collaborative Proteomics Center at Princeton University, where he served as Director for the next half decade. Subsequently, he co-founded the drug-discovery startup, Crescenta Biosciences, where he served as VP of Target Discovery, before being drawn back to academia to serve as a co-PI under Prof. Nikolai Slavov at Northeastern University to work on the foundations of single-cell proteomics.

In 2018, he was recruited to serve as Director of the Exploratory Proteomics group at the Merck Exploratory Science Center Cambridge, where he established and led the Ultrasensitive and Single-Cell Proteomics program for the Experimental and Chemical Biology division. He is the co-author of more than 50 peer-reviewed articles and patents pending and currently serves as a consultant for biopharma.

Moderator: Nikki Forrester (Freelance science writer, and editor)

Nikki Forrester is a science journalist who covers biology, natural history, climate, and the culture of academic research. She earned a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology in 2019.