High-resolution acoustic ejection mass spectrometry for high-throughput library screening.

An approach is described for high-throughput quality assessment of drug candidate libraries using high-resolution acoustic ejection mass spectrometry (AEMS). Sample introduction from 1536-well plates is demonstrated for this application using 2.5 nL acoustically dispensed sample droplets into an Open Port Interface (OPI) with pneumatically assisted electrospray ionization at a rate of one second per sample.

Development of a high-throughput dual-stream liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method to screen for inhibitors of glutamate carboxypeptidase II.

Rationale: Glutamate carboxypeptidase II (GCPII) catalyzes the hydrolysis of N-acetylaspartylglutamate (NAAG) to yield glutamate (Glu) and N-acetylaspartate (NAA). Inhibition of GCPII has been shown to remediate the neurotoxicity of excess Glu in a variety of cell and animal disease models. A robust high-throughput liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS) method was needed to quantify GCPII enzymatic activity in a biochemical high-throughput screening assay.

Target Class Profiling of Small-Molecule Methyltransferases.

Target class profiling (TCP) is a chemical biology approach to investigate understudied biological target classes. TCP is achieved by developing a generalizable assay platform and screening curated compound libraries to interrogate the chemical biological space of members of an enzyme family. In this work, we took a TCP approach to investigate inhibitory activity across a set of small-molecule methyltransferases (SMMTases), a subclass of methyltransferase enzymes, with the goal of creating a launchpad to explore this largely understudied target class.

Parent-Researcher Perspectives on Role Intersectionality Related to Autism Research.

Although parents of children with autism who are also experts in a related profession have been instrumental in shaping current practices, there is little known about parent-researchers and the benefits and obstacles to including individuals with these intersectional identities on autism focused research teams. The following study used collaborative autoethnographies from three parent-researchers hired for a large scale, federally funded project. The parent-researchers, and co-authors, collaborated on all phases of the reported study.