Leonie obtained a Bachelor's degree in Biology and MSc in Neuroscience at the University of Bremen with internships at the Monash University, Australia, and the Otto-von-Guericke-Universit, Germany. Currently, she is studying for a PhD in the lab of Professor Matthias Trost at Newcastle University, with a combined industrial placement at GlaxoSmithKline. Her research focuses on implementing MALDI-TOF MS into drug discovery efforts, with the aim of identifying novel therapeutics for the auto-immune and immune-oncology space.

Kish obtained a PhD at the University of Birmingham, investigating mass spectrometry approaches towards the characterisation of protein Post-Translational Modifications at the Leney Lab. Kish then commenced a Wellcome Trust Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the Thalassinos Lab, University College London. He is primarily interested in leveraging mass spectrometry methodologies to probe protein structure and function, employing techniques such as crosslinking-, ion mobility-, and native-mass spectrometry as well as single-cell, bottom-up, and top-down proteomics, across biological platforms including purified proteins, mammalian cancer cells and isolated virion particles.

Realisation in Sean’s own work investigating spike viral glycoproteins made clear the important, and relatively understudied role glycosylation plays in the ability of viral proteins to interact with host receptors, but also evade immune detection. Furthermore, the glycosylation state of a viral protein greatly influences antibody recognition and is therefore of paramount importance for vaccine design, including new DNA/RNA based vaccines. Due to the largely heterogeneous nature of glycosylation, interactions involving glycans are exceedingly difficult to study. Sean’s goal is to solve this problem and transform our ability to unpick these complex glycan-dependent relationships.

Bio: George obtained an PhD. in Chemistry from the University of Cambridge where he used spectroscopic and mass spectrometry based techniques to understand the speciation of ruthenium arene complexes with four-helical bundle proteins. George is now based in the Proteomics STP at The Francis Crick Institute, working as a GSK Postdoctoral Research Scientist, part of a Prosperity Partnership collaboration between The Crick and GSK. His research is looking to develop chemical proteomics methods to identify new chemical starting points in a range of disease areas.