Erin Humphries

@erinmhumphries.bsky.social

Cancer #Proteomics Researcher | Mass Spec Enthusiast | Analytical Chemist | FFPE #Phosphoproteomics | She/her | My opinions are my own

New preprint: We isolate peptide–RNA photo-crosslinks with tunable RNA chains from living cells for mass spec. This maps over 4,700 crosslinking sites across 744 proteins and offers the first glimpse into the RNA sequences in crosslinks by MS. Read here: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Peptide-RNA photo-crosslinks with tunable RNA chain map protein-RNA interfaces

Photo-crosslinking mass spectrometry enables the identification of protein-RNA interactions in living cells, pinpointing interaction interfaces at single-amino acid resolution. However, current isolat...

doi.org

I am thrilled to share after years of work/procrastination that the MassQL manuscript is finally published in @natmethods.nature.com - "A universal language for finding mass spectrometry data patterns". This was an team effort from all co-authors that helped shape MassQL and how it could be used.

As a nerdy mass spectrometrist, what you would want to do all day is to design proteomics projects, dive into the data, draw conclusions, and solve the puzzle.. Sometimes, the job you are in may not be ideal to continue doing that.. In that case either you could compromise and stay on or leave.. 1/6

I'm excited to announce that we're expanding our leadership team at IonOpticks. We're searching for an exceptional Product Director with deep scientific expertise in chromatography and LC-MS to lead our Product Development team during an exciting phase of global growth. Apply here: bit.ly/43VoC4t

Product Director - LC-MS - SEEK

Exciting leadership opportunity to join an Aust-based tech company on a global mission to revolutionise the field of chromatography & proteomics.

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“Habit becomes the enemy of innovation. And there’s a lot of space to innovate.” Dr. Samantha Emery-Corbin, research fellow at the Monash Proteomics and Metabolomics Platform, discusses the art of scientific storytelling and potentially transformative sepsis treatment research. bit.ly/41EGEXa

From Parasites to Proteomics: how Dr. Samantha Emery-Corbin is Bridging Biology and Big Data - IonOpticks

Interview with Dr Samantha Emery-Corbin, a research fellow at the Monash Proteomics and Metabolomics Platform in Melbourne.

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🚨 More research on single-cell proteomics! We evaluated how formaldehyde-based fixation preserve proteome state, drug response and cell integrity. Ultimately, cell fixation can facilitate access to #singlecell by enabeling sample shiping and prolonged sorting 📦 pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Formaldehyde Fixation Helps Preserve the Proteome State during Single-Cell Proteomics Sample Processing and Analysis

Mass spectrometry-based single-cell proteomics (SCP) is gaining momentum but remains limited to a few laboratories due to the high costs and specialized expertise required. The ability to send samples to specialized core facilities would benefit nonspecialist laboratories and popularize SCP for biological applications. However, no methods have been tested in SCP to “freeze” the proteome state while maintaining cell integrity for transfer between laboratories or prolonged sorting using fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS). This study evaluates whether short-term formaldehyde (FA) fixation can maintain the cell states. We demonstrate that short-term FA fixation does not substantially affect protein recovery, even without heating and strong detergents, and maintains analytical depth compared with classical workflows. Fixation also preserves drug-induced specific perturbations of the protein abundance during cell sorting and sample preparation for SCP analysis. Our findings suggest that FA fixation can facilitate SCP by enabling sample shipping and prolonged sorting, potentially democratizing access to SCP technology and expanding its application in biological research, thereby accelerating discoveries in cell biology and personalized medicine.

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Calling all #TeamMassSpec experts. I’m planning to revisit the classic SCX fractionation protocol but ran into a challenge - I can’t find a vendor for syringes with metal springs to make stage tips. I’d be so grateful for any suggestions or advice you might have 🙏 *attaching picture as an example

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#Teammassspec with an Astral, do you use file size as a QC metric and if so, how? For qTOFs I can see trends in performance. But with a trapping mechanism, I suspect AGC/maxIT leads to less ion intensity variability across samples (a good feature) however it makes file size less useful as a metric.

Our proof of concept paper has just been published in the Journal of Proteome Research. Demonstrates our capabilities for blood proteomics, using both immunoassay and mass spec for fractionated blood and VAMS (dried blood spot) devices. #massspec #proteomics pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Investigating the Use of Novel Blood Processing Methods to Boost the Identification of Biomarkers for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: A Proof of Concept

Diagnosis of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) currently relies on imaging; however, these methods are not effective for detecting early stage disease. Investigating blood-based protein biomarkers aims to simplify the diagnostic process and identify disease-associated changes before they can be seen by using imaging techniques. In this study, plasma and frozen whole blood cell pellets from NSCLC patients and healthy controls were processed using both classical and novel techniques to produce a unique set of four sample types from a single blood draw. These samples were analyzed using 12 immunoassays and liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry to collectively screen 3974 proteins. Analysis of all fractions produced a set of 522 differentially expressed proteins, with conventional blood analysis (proteomic analysis of plasma) accounting for only 7 of the total. Boosted regression tree analysis of the differentially expressed proteins produced a panel of 13 proteins that were able to discriminate between controls and NSCLC patients, with an area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.864 for the set. Our rapid and reproducible (<10% CV for technical replicates) blood preparation and analysis methods enabled the production of high-quality data from only 30 μL of complex samples that typically require significant fractionation prior to proteomic analysis. With our methods, almost 4000 proteins were identified from a single fraction over a 62.5 min gradient by LC-MS/MS.

pubs.acs.org