Center for Mass Spectrometry and Optical Spectroscopy (CeMOS), Mannheim University of Applied Sciences, Germany.

Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI MS) cell assays and MALDI tissue imaging have emerged as a key technologies for label-free bioanalysis of whole cells and of the spatial distribution of biomolecules, pharmaceuticals and other xenobiotics in tissue sections.

This talk will present recent advances in MALDI MS-based cell and tissue analysis at CeMOS with a view on pharmaceutical R&D:

Cell-based assays for compound screening and profiling are fundamentally important in life sciences, chemical biology and pharmaceutical research. Most cell assays measure the amount of a single reporter molecule or cellular endpoint, and require the use of fluorescence or other labeled materials. Consequently, there is high demand for label-free technologies that enable multiple biomolecules or endpoints to be measured simultaneously. The talk will summarize recent work on MALDI-TOF MS cell assays that can be used to measure cellular uptake of transporter substrates, to monitor cellular drug target engagement or to discover cellular drug-response markers. It will also present a perspective on down-scaled MALDI-MS cell assays on nanoliter droplet microarrays. The second part of the talk will summarize recent advances in MALDI MS imaging in pharmaceutical research. These developments have led to applications of the technology in drug discovery beyond drug disposition analysis, most notably in pharmacodynamic biomarker research, qualification of rodent “disease models” and in toxicology.