Speakers - 2025
Magnus Palmblad’s group uses computational and systematic approaches to molecular biology, focusing on applying mass spectrometry in proteomics and metabolomics, and developing new methods to answer fundamental biological questions, in cell cultures, model organisms, the human proteome and population cohorts, integrating genetic variants or transcripts with protein abundance, gene expression with protein synthesis, and metabolomics data with text mining and computational chemistry.
Keynote Speaker
Dr. Magnus Palmblad
Associate Professor
Leiden University
His research focuses on applying mass spectrometry in proteomics and metabolomics, and developing new methods to answer fundamental biological questions, in cell cultures, model organisms, the human proteome and population cohorts, integrating genetic variants or transcripts with protein abundance, gene expression with protein synthesis, and metabolomics data with text mining and computational chemistry. Dr. Palmblad serves on the HUPO Council and the Editorial Board of the Journal of Proteome Research.
Prof. Joanna McGouran
Trinity College Dublin
Prof. Joanna McGouran is an Associate Professor in Translational Organic Chemistry in Trinity College Dublin. Joanna obtained her degree and PhD in Chemistry from the University of Oxford, where she also gained postdoctoral experience in medicine and chemical biology. Research in her group focuses on bio-molecule modification to create new tools to study biological systems. The group chemically modify proteins, oligonucleotides, peptides and nucleosides to introduce new functionality and assess the biological effects of this modification. Mass spec is a key tool to study these modifications and their biological effects. The group currently has a specific focus on DNA damage repair and deubiquitinating enzymes.
Dr Dilip Rai
Teagasc
Dr. Rai is a senior researcher in Teagasc. He leads research in the characterisation of bioactive molecules extracted from terrestrial plant and marine sources. Prior to Teagasc, he did his post-doctoral research in UCD School of Chemistry where he is an adjunct assistant professor. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Foods and Exploration of Food and Foodomics, and has been a Guest Editor in the journal "Molecules". He has served as a member of the management committee of the EU COST Action FA1403 POSITIVe and a member of Public Health Nutrition sub-committee under the Food Safety Authority of Ireland.
Prof. Robert Graham
Queens University Belfast
Professor Grahams research sits at the interface of genomics, chemical biology and biomedical science. He has a long standing track record working on biomarkers. His expertise is in mass spectrometry based proteomics He was recruited to Queens University Belfast in 2018 from the University of Manchester , where he worked for 6 years. Prior to that Prof. Graham had spent four years at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) At Queens he was Co- Lead for N. Ireland for the delivery of the National COVID-19 testing strategy to develop mass spectrometry as a viable solution for COVID-19 diagnostics.
Prof. Kieran Kilcawley
School of Food and Nutritional Sciences
UCC
Prof Kieran Kilcawley background has evolved from biochemistry and enzymology of foods to flavour chemistry. He now manages a state of the art flavour chemistry facility at Teagasc Moorepark and is actively involved in flavour research and in providing a service to industry. The aim is to improve extraction of volatile's from foods and beverages and identify volatile's that are actually influencing sensory perception and utilize the latest techniques to do so, such as reverse flow comprehensive gas (GCxGC) chromatography. Kieran has published >100 peer review research articles and written 16 book chapters. While alot of his experience is in dairy product flavour he also has active research projects in beef, lamb and whiskey flavouring.
Mairead Webster
Chemist
The State Laboratory
Mairéad Webster is currently leading the toxicology screening strategy in the State Laboratory.
Mairéad has been involved in the area of post-mortem toxicology for the last 13 years and has extensive experience in providing support and advice to the clients, case reporting and acting as an expert witness as required.
She is passionate about driving change and process improvements, ensuring that the State Laboratory are up-to-date with any emerging drug trends and are using modern technology to support this analysis. Mairéad uses a Thermo QExactiveher post-motem toxicology workflow.
Dr. Argyris Politis
School of Biological Sciences
University of Manchester
Argyris has obtained degrees from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece and Imperial College London. He carried out post-doctoral research in Cambridge and Oxford in the laboratory of Prof. Dame Carol Robinson, where he studied the structure and function of protein complexes using mass spectrometry. Since 2014 he has been running his independent research group at King’s College London focusing on mass spectrometry-based investifgation of membrane proteins. In particular, he established the study of lipid-mediated conformational dynamics in membrane transporters. Recently, he moved to the University of Manchester and his current interests lie in exploring how the lipid environment and pharmacologically important ligands shape the conformational landscape of challenging membrane proteins, important for human health and disease.
Dr. Sara Carillo
Bioanalytical Research Lead
NIBRT
Dr. Sara Carillo is the bioanalytical research lead in the Characterization and Comparability Laboratory in NIBRT. Sara completed her PhD in Chemical Science at the University of Naples in 2013 working on the structural characterization of bacterial glycoconjugates. In 2015, Sara joined Dr. Jonathan Bones’s research group in NIBRT, working on CHO cell glycome and biotherapeutics characterization.
Dr. Harry Whitwell
National Phenome Centre
Imperial College London
Harry completed his PhD in 2016. Subsequently, he undertook a post-doc with Prof John Timms at the Institute for Women’s Health developing biomarker models for the early detection of Ovarian Cancer, He then moved Imperial College in 2018 and became Proteomics Platform Lead for the National Phenome Centre, accepting a joint position within the Division of System Medicine. He was recently appointed Lecturer of Proteomics and Integrative Data Analysis in October 2023. His research interests are broad, developing multi-omics pipelines for studying spatial distribution of molecules disease tissue, with a particular interest in protein methylation.