Characterizing complex carbohydrates with IC-MS

Ion chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (IC-MS) is an advanced tool for derivatization-free, high-resolution characterization of carbohydrates. This technique holds significant promise for the identification and structural analysis of unknown oligosaccharides. Building on a successful collaboration with Dr. Neil Rumachik’s team at Thermo Fisher Scientific, Dr. Fiona Cuskin’s group at Newcastle University secured funding to acquire a Thermo Scientific™ Dionex™ ICS-6000 HPIC™ system, equipped with both a Thermo Scientific™ electrochemical detector and a Thermo Scientific™ Orbitrap™ Exploris 240 mass spectrometer. Since the installation, the team has utilized this advanced system to analyze a diverse array of carbohydrates, including those with both known and unknown structures.

In this webinar Fiona will present their latest findings on N-glycans, human milk oligosaccharides, microbial polysaccharide degradation by enzymes, and more. The aim is to showcase the versatility of the IC-MS system in analyzing and characterizing carbohydrates from a wide variety of sources with differing structures.

Dr Fiona Cuskin and Neil Rumachik will be available after the presentation to answer all your questions in a live Q&A session

Presenter: Dr. Fiona Cuskin (Lecturer in metabolic biochemistry, Newcastle University)

Dr. Fiona Cuskin is a lecturer in metabolic biochemistry at Newcastle University, her research is focussed on understanding the molecular mechanisms of complex carbohydrate degradation in microbial communities such as the human gut microbiome. Her work uses various methods to characterise enzymes involved in carbohydrate degradation including ion chromatography. She has over 15 years’ experience using ion chromatography for carbohydrate analysis.

Presenter: Neil Rumachik (Manager of Applications Development, Thermo Fisher Scientific)

Neil Rumachik is the Manager of Applications Development within the marketing division of the Ion Chromatography and Sample Preparation business unit at Thermo Fisher Scientific. Before transitioning to the marketing team, Neil spent five years as a staff scientist in R&D at Thermo, where he developed innovative IC-MS products and workflows for carbohydrate analysis. With over a decade of experience at the intersection of chemistry and biology, Neil has focused on developing cross-disciplinary methods and utilizing multi-omics platforms to advance biological studies. His primary research interests include the application of chemistries and hyphenated mass spectrometry technologies for the characterization of biological samples. Neil completed his graduate studies in Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley (MS), and Stanford University (PhD) under the mentorship of Professor Carolyn Bertozzi before joining Thermo Fisher Scientific.