Tissue Preservation and Biobanking

The introduction of sensitive ionization methods and continuing improvement in resolving power in the past decades has made mass spectrometry an ideal tool for biomarker discovery. The coupling of chromatography and mass spectrometry emerged to be the most powerful profiling techniques for global characterization of proteins and metabolites in biological systems. In this “omics” era, many researchers rely on mass spectrometry-based proteomic and metabolomics experimental approaches to search for potential biomarkers. In this talk, I will describe how I applied these approaches to (1) discover metastasis-promoting secretory proteins of lung cancer cells; (2) discover virulence factors secreted from Streptococcus pyogenes in response to wound environments; and (3) discover biomarkers for assessing exposure to toxicants. Challenges and limitations will be discussed.