Webinar September 2024 – Prof. Hopf

On Wednesday, September 25, 2024, an online seminar on "New Trends Mass Spectrometry Imaging (MSI) Solutions for Lipids: Simplification for Non-experts versus more Analytical Depth for Advanced MSI Teams" was held at 3.30 p.m. (CEST).

The speaker was Prof. Dr. Carsten Hopf from Mannheim University of Applied Sciences, Germany.

If you are interested in the slides of the presentation, please get in touch with us!

Abstract

Mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) has emerged as a powerful technology platform for spatially resolved analysis and visualization of lipids in pharmaceutical R&D, in clinical research and in basic science. Advancement of MSI requires steady progress in multiple areas such as instrumentation, specialty chemicals or IT solutions. The talk will therefore focus on two trends, simplification and routinification of MSI workflows on the one hand, and their advancement towards more comprehensive compound identification by on-tissue MS/MS on the other.

Regarding the former, a new benchtop mass spectrometer and caged in-source laser-cleavable MALDI matrices with high vacuum stability promise easier use of MALDI-MSI for non-MS-experts. As for the latter, the talk will introduce quantum cascade laser (QCL) mid-infrared imaging microscopy for identification and segmentation of regions of interest (ROI). This QCL-guidance enables deep MS/MS lipid characterization and structure elucidation by imaging parallel reaction monitoring and parallel accumulation serial fragmentation (iprm-PASEF) directly on tissue. Finally, to assist in pinpointing areas of a metabolite-of-interest’s increased relative spatial abundance/deficiency in spatial metabolomics, a software for spatial probabilistic mapping of entire lipid classes in MSI will be featured.