Heather Desaire
University of Kansas, KS·Chemistry
Mass spectrometry weighs molecules with great precision and can measure thousands of lipids, proteins or other biomolecules in a single sample. But collecting samples can be invasive, and making sense of the data is difficult.
- Fields
Chemistry
Biochemistry
Computer Science
- Topics
mass spectrometry
electrospray ionization
lipidomics
- Grants
- 3 known grants, through Jun 2030
What they work on
- Develop and optimize a noninvasive, painless, biohazard-free sampling method for mass spectrometry lipidomics, tailored to infants and children, and use it to chart lipid regulation across the healthy lifespan.
- Build a machine-learning tool to assign charge states in electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) data, improving analysis of highly charged ions for glycoproteomics, top-down, disulfide and cross-linking studies.
- Identify the best feature selection methods for mass spectrometry omics data and develop an optimal blood plasma biomarker panel for Alzheimer's disease in African Americans.
- Test how much the Alzheimer's prediction accuracy of existing mass spectrometry omics studies varies with participants' race.
- Support big-data projects on ovarian cancer, myelin repair, menopause-related chronic disease risk and rural health through a center offering mentoring, new faculty and a biomedical datasets core.
More about the research
The lab pairs mass spectrometry with machine learning to build tools that make these measurements easier to collect, easier to analyze and more useful across diverse groups of people. The PI also leads a campus center that uses big data to study chronic disease and mental health.
Why it matters
A painless, biohazard-free sampling method could open lipid studies to infants, children and the elderly. It could also enable future research on diseases with disrupted lipids, such as autism, cystic fibrosis, kidney disease and Parkinson's disease. Better charge-state assignment would give protein mass spectrometry researchers more accurate tools. Race-aware blood biomarker panels could improve Alzheimer's diagnosis for African Americans, who are now poorly served by existing diagnostics.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Qibin Zhang
University of North Carolina at Greensboro, NC·Chemistry
Extend OzNOxESI, an ion reaction inside a mass spectrometer that reveals double-bond positions, from phospholipids to all lipid classes, especially glycerolipids and sphingolipids.
Drew Jones
New York University, NY·Biochemistry
Provide metabolomics services to cancer researchers, including global and untargeted metabolomics, lipidomics, mass spectrometry imaging and custom targeted methods for measuring specific metabolites.
David Muddiman
North Carolina State University, NC·Chemistry
Develop new ionization methods, which convert neutral molecules into charged ions for mass spectrometry, and characterize how they work using real biological tissues rather than standards.
The school
University of Kansas: 26 labs on PI Pages, $546M a year on research, 351 research doctorates a year.
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