2019: St. Andrews

The Proteomics Methods Forum is coming to St. Andrews on 18-20 June 2019.

We’re pleased to announce that the Proteomics Methods Forum will be hosted by the University of St. Andrews on Tuesday 19th to Thursday 20th June 2019 at the Gateway building on the University campus. The circular building is prominently located on your right as you enter St. Andrews.

There will be a Core PMF (cPMF) meeting held prior to the main PMF meeting. The cPMF meeting will take place in the Medical Sciences Building in Seminar Room 1. This meeting is focused particularly for Core Facilities of Universities due to the unique issues that they face. These are frequently a subset of the issues discussed in the wider PMF meetings. This will be the second cPMF meeting after the need was first identified last year. The Medical Sciences Building is next to the Gateway Building at the entrance to the North Haugh campus.

There is a small charge (£25) for the conference this year. This is to put towards administration costs and help towards some conference costs, although the main bulk of the costs are covered by our generous sponsors and exhibitors.

Kindly sponsored by

PMF is only possible with the generous support of our sponsors. They enable us to offer the meeting at a reduced rate for our delegates and allow us to meet in a great venue. In return, the sponsors have the opportunity to meet with delegates who actually work daily in the field of protein mass spectrometry and Proteomics. As well as affording delegates an opportunity to network with one another, we deliberately provide opportunities to network with suppliers related to the field of protein mass spectrometry. In 2019, the following companies have generously agreed to sponsor the Proteomics Methods Forum.

Spnsors for 2019

Kindly supported by

We have a relationship with the British Society for Proteomics Research (BSPR). They have kindly supported the Proteomics Methods Forum.

The BSPR continue to run another conference that is aimed more towards research and the application of protein mass spectrometry to that research. You can find out more details about BSPR 2019 here.

Working Programme

Tuesday 18th June: Optional Core PMF (cPMF)

13.30 Arrival
14.00 cPMF session 1: core facility talks - Chair David Knight
Sally Shirran (St Andrews): Variety is the spice of life, but it gives be indigestion
Logan Mackay (Edinburgh): Invoicing in a core facility
Matt Fuszard (Halle): Is the grass greener? Core Facility experiences in Germany
15.00 coffee break (not supplied)
15.30 cPMF session 2: core facility discussion - Chair David Knight
1) What routes/mechanisms have Core labs attempted for equipment replacement, what has worked, and what has NOT worked? If depreciation costs are embedded in your charges, are they allocated/ accumulated for instrument renewal or disappear into central funds?
2) What is your institute's expectation for cost recovery? Are all costs included (e.g. incl. staff)? If you make any kind of surplus, are you allowed to keep it (to fund staff or new equipment)?
3) Which approach do you use for keeping maximum up time - full service contracts with all costs passed onto users, or fix it when it breaks yourself, with vendors as a last resort?
4) How do you handle admin (booking, tracking use, charging) - home-made solutions or 3rd party paid-for solution? If a 3rd party solution, what, why, and how did you justify costs to your institute?
17.00 End of session
Informal drinks at local bar/restaurant for those that want to continue discussions

Wednesday 19th June morning: Optional Vendors workshop

09.00 Arrival and refreshments
09.30 Session 1: 5x 15 min vendor presentations from technical experts - Chair TBC
Covaris Universal and Reproducible Proteomics Sample Preparation
Sciex Gina Eagle Ultra-fast proteomics and the evolution of large scale DIA quantitation
Waters TBC
Shimadzu Chris Titman Three is the magic number
Thermo George Just Genius Made Simpler: Improving Everyday Protein Profiling to Quantitative Analysis
10.45 coffee break
11.15 Session 2: 5x 15 min vendor presentations from technical experts - Chair TBC
Bruker Lucy Woods Applying MALDI on an orthogonal QTOF: benefits and application examples
MatrixScience Ville Koskinen Human gut metaproteomics with Mascot
FintiedeSolutions Erik Verschuuren Towards a Standardized Omics Solution, making sample separation 10 times faster and 100 times more robust than today’s alternatives
Profiti TBC
Pharmafluidics Robert Van Ling Maximize the output of proteome analyses using a 50cm long micro-pillar array column as front-end separation
12:30 End of session

Wednesday 19th June afternoon: PMF #1

12.30 Registration and Lunch
13.30 PMF session 1: Sample preparation and automation - Chair Ian Fearnley
4x 15min presentation slots (10 min talk) + 15 min group/panel discussion
Van Kelly (University of Edinburgh) Preparation of samples from formaldehyde treated cells
Kelly Gallagher (University of Edinburgh) An isotope depletion strategy for improved top-down fragmentation
Ronan O'Cualain (University of Manchester) AFA sonication, S-Traps and other plate based methods - are we getting close to taming Proteomics sample prep
Josie Christopher (University of Cambridge) LOPIT-DC: A simpler, high-resolution alternative for spatial proteomics
14.45 coffee
15.30 PMF session 2: PostTranslational Modifications - Chair Karl Burgess
4x 15min presentation slots (10 min talk) and 15 min group discussion
Jan Skelnar (The Sainbury Laboratory) Analysis of Sulphated peptides
Chris Taylor (University of York) Crosslinking, joining up expectation and reality
Iolanda Vendrell (University of Oxford) Citrullination
Stoyan Stoychev (CSIR Petoria) Automated phosphorylation workflows
16.45 ASMS update vendor flash presentations
17.00 Pizza and beer
18.00 Feature presentation by Angus Lamond (University of Dundee) Joining the dots: meeting the challenge of big data in proteomics followed by 20 min discussion/debate
19.00 End of session
20.00 Evening mixer, sponsored by MatrixScience at St Andrews Brewing Company, 119 North Street, St Andrews, KY16 9AD

Thursday 20th June morning: PMF #2

09.00 Registration and coffee
09.30 PMF session 3: Quantification - Chair Clive D'Santos
4x 15min presentation slots (10 min talk) + 15 min group discussion
Alejandro Brenes (University of Dundee) Multi-batch TMT reveals false positives, batch effects and missing values
Silvia Synowsky (University of St Andrews) SWATH trials and tribulations
Martina Finetti (Newcastle University) label free quantitation
Vincent Geoghegan (University of York) An enhanced proximity biotinylation method for characterisation of large protein complexes
10.45 coffee
11.30 PMF session 4: Data Processing and Statistics - Chair Dougie Lamont
4x 15min presentation slots (10 min talk) and 15 min group discussion
Mary Doherty (University of Highlands & Islands) Measuring protein and lipid flux: the benefits and challenges
Michele Tinti (University of Dundee) Data analysis of non-model species
Marek Gierlinski (University of Dundee) R environment for MaxQuant
ANOther TBC
12.45 Meeting Roundup
13.00 End of session and lunch

PMF session structure

4x 10 min talks with 5 min questions (1 hour)

Theme discussion (15 min)

Flash sessions (110 min): Vendor flashes = 5x 2 min talks from main MS vendors to highlight their latest developments; Advice flashes = 5x 2 min or 10x 1 min presentations about issues people would like advice on; Submitted flashes = 10x 1 min submitted presentations

Evening event

The purpose is to bring people together and stimulate interactions. With this in mind, we have arranged for Angus Lamond (University of Dundee) to come and to have a discussion after.

Presenters needed!

Each talk must be focused on the methodological aspects of the work and have minimal biological intro slides (this is the PMF!). If you think you can provide a talk please contact us with a title and abstract for consideration. If your talk doesn’t fit in the remit then contact us with regards to submitted flash presentation slot and face the Horn!

Accommodation for PMF 2019

The recommended accommodation for PMF 2019 is the St. Andrews University halls. You can find out more details about the halls by clicking the button below. If you don’t wish to stay in the University halls, there are plenty of hotels in St. Andrews that you can book and stay in.

The nearest hall to the Gateway, where PMF 2019 is being held, is the Agnes Blackadder Hall. The Mackintosh Hall is also close and is another option. It was not possible to arrange a promotional code for accommodation.

Travel to St. Andrews

The train is probably the best way of getting to PMF 2019. St. Andrews does not have a railway station (if you put this into a ticket machine you will end up in Bristol!). The nearest railway station is Leuchars and as this is on the main east coast line it is well serviced with regular trains. There is a bus connection that meets the trains to transfer to St. Andrews.  Alternatively, there is a busy taxi rank that can also take you St. Andrews.  Leuchars is about 4 miles from St. Andrews.

The closest Airports are Dundee Airport, which has a couple of scheduled flights which I suspect are very expensive, and Edinburgh Airport.   Edinburgh Airport is 50 miles (1.5 hrs) from St Andrews by car.

The alternative is to hire a car with friends. There is loads of free parking in St. Andrews. University car parking requires a permit. However, there is a large free public car park (Petheram Bridge car park) with 300 spaces opposite the Gateway building.