Co-Director: Michael Freitas, PhD
Co-Director: Amanda Hummon, PhD
Technical Director: Liwen Zhang, PhD
Associate Director of CCIC MSP: Arpad Somogyi , Ph.D
Senior Research Associate: Sophie Harvey, PhD
Research Associate: Matthew Bernier, PhD
Research Scientist: Gong Wu, PhD
Program Manager: Laura Vanarsdale, MS
Michael Freitas, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Molecular Virology, Immunology and Medical Genetics at The Ohio State University. Having worked in the field of mass spectrometry and proteomics for 22 years, he has spent the last 14 years applying mass spectrometry to the analysis of histone modifications. He performed his postdoctoral research at the National High Magnetic Field laboratory under the direction of Dr. Alan G. Marshall and his graduate work at Kansas State University under the direction of Dr. Richard A. J. O’Hair. During this time, his research focused on high-resolution, high-mass accuracy Fourier Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance (FT-ICR) MS and biomolecule characterization. Dr. Freitas is the director of the Proteomics Core for Ohio State’s Leukemia SCOR and scientific advisor to Ohio State’s Mass Spectrometry and Proteomics Facility.
Liwen Zhang, PhD, is a research scientist who specializes in post-translational modification and protein quantitation analyses, while also providing technical expertise on mass spectrometry and proteomics. She will serve as technical director for the proposed projects. Dr. Zhang has worked extensively in detecting post-translational modifications, crosslink or amino acid mutation of proteins. In addition, she works on label-free or isotope-labeling protein quantitation using mass spectrometry coupled with chromatography. Dr. Zhang earned her doctorate at The Ohio State University, where she studied histone modifications using mass spectrometry. A member of the PSR for 16 years, she has developed good relationships with diversified collaborative projects and co-authored more than 40 scientific publications.
Arpad Somogyi, PhD, associate director of CCIC MS&P, has 30-plus years of experience in mass spectrometry and 18 years in MS facility management. Dr. Somogyi's is the associate director of the Ohio State Campus Chemical Instrument Center (CCIC). For the PSR, Dr. Somogyi assists Dr. Zhang in the development of new initiatives such as overseeing installation of the new instruments, building metabolomics services, supervising administrative staff in billing and web-site maintenance, and overseeing difficult instrument troubleshooting issues. Dr. Somogyi’s role is principally as advisor.
Sophie Harvey, PhD, senior research associate, works on proteomics samples within the Ohio State Mass Spectrometry and Proteomics Facility. This includes identifying proteins using bottom-up approaches and top-down approaches, as well as intact protein or protein complex measurements. She works on identifying post-translational modifications, as well as label-free or isotope labelled samples for quantitation. Sophie’s work mostly uses the Thermo Orbitrap Fusion, Thermo Q Exactive Plus, Thermo Orbitrap XL instruments and the 15T FT ICR MS. Her role also includes data analysis of these samples using a variety of different software packages, including Mascot and Proteome Discoverer. Prior to working in the facility, Sophie received her PhD from the University of Edinburgh working under the supervision of Perdita Barran using MS and ion mobility-MS to study conformationally dynamic proteins and their interactions with small drug molecules or biomolecules. After completing her PhD, Sophie did postdoctoral research in the lab of Vicki Wysocki at The Ohio State University studying the structure of protein complexes, and membrane protein complexes, using MS and IM-MS.
Matthew Bernier, PhD, research associate, is the small molecule, accurate mass and metabolomics facilitator here at the Mass Spectrometry and Proteomics Facility. His work at the facility began in early 2017 after receiving his PhD while studying under the guidance of Dr. Wysocki at Ohio State and doing postdoctoral work at Georgia Tech under Dr. Facundo Fernandez. Matt’s main areas of focus have mainly involved small molecule peptide fragmentation fundamentals, ambient ionization development and high-resolution analysis. Matt has experience working with small molecule analysis of complex mixtures from many sources and has used many instrument platforms, from GCMS to ICR, along with small molecule analysis with ion mobility on Waters Synapt G2 instrumentation. In the facility, he uses mainly the ThermoScientific Quantiva triple quadrupole for targeted metabolomics and the Thermo Q-Exactive plus for untargeted metabolomics for the majority of projects. Matt is also involved in training users in the operation of the triple quadrupole and runs accurate mass analysis on our 15 T Bruker ICR. In addition, for both targeted and untargeted small molecule metabolomics Matt uses data analysis programs, particularly Progenesis and other open source software, to identify targets of interest and perform the appropriate statistical analysis for the highest quality data for submitted projects.
Gong Wu, PhD, research scientist, has extensive experience in natural products, protein and organic chemistry, drug design, development and validation. His role in the CCIC MSP facility is to design metabolomics experiments for targeted and non-targeted analysis by HPLC/MS/MS. Including, sample preparation, data acquisition, data analysis including quantitation of targeted components in samples, metabolite identification, statistical analysis of data sets, bioinformatics, and pathway analysis. Dr Wu’s work in the facility mostly involves the Thermo Scientific Quantiva triple quadrupole for targeted metabolomics and the Thermo Q-Exactive plus or Thermo Exploris 480 for untargeted metabolomics. Dr Wu uses a variety of data analysis tools for data analysis, including Progenesis, compound discoverer and open source software packages. Dr Wu also facilitates accurate and nominal mass measurements using electrospray ionization and MALDI on the Bruker Ultra ultrafleXtreme and Bruker 15 T FT-ICR.
Chengyu Gao, PhD, research scientist, works on LC/MS-based untargeted chemical profiling, targeted compound quantification, and multivariate data analysis at the Mass Spectrometry and Proteomics Facility. Dr. Gao joined the facility in January 2023. Prior to that, he received his PhD from The Ohio State University under the supervision of Dr. Devin Peterson, where he applied an LC/MS-based untargeted flavoromics approach to discover, identify, and validate novel flavor molecules that significantly modulate bitter perception. After completing his PhD, Dr. Gao joined PepsiCo global R&D research center as a senior scientist, where he developed GC/MS-based untargeted analysis to predict flavor change in the beverages; and worked on targeted flavor compounds analysis as well as root cause analysis of consumer complaints from various beverages. Dr. Gao has experience working with different instrument platforms, including GC/O, GC/MS, preparative LC/MS, and UPLC/MS. At the facility, he mainly works on untargeted metabolomics analysis (Thermo Scientific Exploris 480), targeted compound quantification (Thermo Scientific Quantiva), multivariate data analysis and pathway analysis (Compound Discoverer and open-source platform). In addition, he also works and facilitates native mass spectrometry analysis on the Thermo Scientific QE-P and UHMR with offline or online buffer exchanges, and MALDI-based accurate and nominal mass measurement on the Bruker ultraflexXtreme TOF-TOF and Bruker 15 Tesla FT-ICR. 0
Aktham Mestareehi, PhD, research scientist, specializes in proteomics, participating in initial project planning and experimental design, developing sample preparation and MS/MS analytical protocols, qualitative and performing statistical analysis of data and preparing reports.
Center Administration. The Business Operations team (Miriam Guirguis, Business Operations Analyst, and Business Operations Senior Analyst, TBD) is responsible for all fiscal, procurement, customer billing, policy development, grant administration, reconciliation, travel coordination and human resource activities and supports reporting activities Laura VanArsdale, Program Manager, organizes the programmatic activities for the Native MS Guided Structural Biology Center and its interface with the CCIC, organizes educational and training activities for the CCIC, and supports reporting activities. Systems Administration is provided by ORIS staff.