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perdita.barran@manchester.ac.uk

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DC6 supervisor

Prof. Perdita Barran

University of Manchester (UNIMAN), Michael Barber Centre for Collaborative Mass Spectrometry, United Kingdom

Perdita received a degree in Chemistry with Industrial Experience from the University of Manchester in 1994, and a PhD. in Chemical Physics from the University of Sussex in 1998, working under the supervision of Tony Stace and Harry Kroto. She spent 3 more years in Sussex designing and building her first ion mobility mass spectrometer with Tony Stace, bravely locating it at the back of a VG ZAB 2E equipped with a cluster beam source. She then moved to UCSB for a second postdoc with Mike Bowers where she used ESI for the first time and never really looked back, and was awarded an EPSRC Advanced Research Fellowship to study the structure and dynamics of peptides and proteins (with IM-MS).

She delayed this fellowship for a year, learnt much more about biology, proteins and proteomics in a role as an MRC research fellow at the University of Edinburgh, helping to establish the SIRCAMS facility. She then started her fellowship and on its completion was awarded a senior lectureship (2010) and a readership (2012). In 2013 she moved (back) to the University of Manchester as Chair of Mass Spectrometry and Director of the Michael Barber Centre for Collaborative Mass Spectrometry.

Her research interests include: Biological mass spectrometry; Instrument and technique development; Protein structure and interactions; Dynamic and Disordered Systems; Parkinson’s disease Diagnostics; HDX-MS; Proteomics; and Molecular modeling. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and was awarded the Theophilus Redwood Award from the RSC in 2019, Researcher of the Year 2020 from the University of Manchester and the ACS Measurement Science Lectureship 2021. In 2020 she initiated the COVID-19 Mass Spectrometry Coalition and was appointed as Chief Advisor to the UK Government on Mass Spectrometry as part of their pandemic response. Perdita has had the privilege to mentor 37 graduate students through the successful completion of their PhD’s. as well as 16 postdoctoral fellows.  Perdita has authored over 200 publications in peer reviewed journals which have been cited over 4000 times, by people other than her.

In 2021 Perdita founded the company Sebomix Ltd. to exploit sebum as a diagnostic biofluid with a focus on Parkinson’s Disease.

“By measuring the mobility of ions we learn about their shape and how they interact with gas. The great thing about combining this with mass spectrometry is that it means we can get shape, chemical identity and stoichiometry all at once!

I am thrilled to be part of the MOBILITRAIN network. It is going to train a whole generation of researchers in IM-MS in the fundamentals as well as developing new insights and new applications. The group of laboratories and companies involved represent the breath of this wonderful technique from manufacturing to delivering benefit to patients.”

Selected Publications

  1. everidge, R., L.G. Migas, R.W. Kriwacki, and P.E. Barran. 2019. “Ion Mobility Mass Spectrometry Measures the Conformational Landscape of P27 and Its Domains and How This Is Modulated upon Interaction with Cdk2/Cyclin A.” Angewandte Chemie – International Edition 58 (10). https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201812697.
  2. Beveridge, Rebecca, Sam Covill, Kamila J. Pacholarz, Jason M.D. Kalapothakis, Cait E. MacPhee, and Perdita E. Barran. 2014. “A Mass-Spectrometry-Based Framework to Define the Extent of Disorder in Proteins.” Analytical Chemistry 86 (22): 10979–91. https://doi.org/10.1021/ac5027435.
  3. Beveridge, Rebecca, Lukasz G. Migas, Rahul K. Das, Rohit V. Pappu, Richard W. Kriwacki, and Perdita E. Barran. 2019. “Ion Mobility Mass Spectrometry Uncovers the Impact of the Patterning of Oppositely Charged Residues on the Conformational Distributions of Intrinsically Disordered Proteins.” Journal of the American Chemical Society, March, jacs.8b13483. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.8b13483.
  4. Beveridge, Rebecca, Lukasz G. Migas, Karl A.P. Payne, Nigel S. Scrutton, David Leys, and Perdita E. Barran. 2016. “Mass Spectrometry Locates Local and Allosteric Conformational Changes That Occur on Cofactor Binding.” Nature Communications 7 (July). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms12163.
  5. Camacho, Inês S., Alina Theisen, Linus O. Johannissen, L. Aranzazú Díaz-Ramos, John M. Christie, Gareth I. Jenkins, Bruno Bellina, Perdita Barran, and Alex R. Jones. 2019. “Native Mass Spectrometry Reveals the Conformational Diversity of the UVR8 Photoreceptor.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/PNAS.1813254116.
  6. Kempa, E.E., C.A. Smith, X. Li, B. Bellina, K. Richardson, S. Pringle, J.L. Galman, N.J. Turner, and P.E. Barran. 2020. “Coupling Droplet Microfluidics with Mass Spectrometry for Ultrahigh-Throughput Analysis of Complex Mixtures up to and above 30 Hz.” Analytical Chemistry 92 (18). https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.0c02632.
  7. Payne, K.A.P., M.D. White, K. Fisher, B. Khara, S.S. Bailey, D. Parker, N.J.W. Rattray, et al. 2015. “New Cofactor Supports α,β-Unsaturated Acid Decarboxylation via 1,3-Dipolar Cycloaddition.” Nature 522 (7557). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14560.
  8. Sinclair, E, D K Trivedi, D Sarkar, C Walton-Doyle, J Milne, T Kunath, A M Rijs, et al. 2021. “Metabolomics of Sebum Reveals Lipid Dysregulation in Parkinson’s Disease.” NATURE COMMUNICATIONS 12 (1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21669-4.
  9. Sinclair, E, C Walton-Doyle, D Sarkar, K A Hollywood, J Milne, S H Lim, T Kunath, et al. 2021. “Validating Differential Volatilome Profiles in Parkinson’s Disease.” ACS CENTRAL SCIENCE 7 (2): 300–306. https://doi.org/10.1021/acscentsci.0c01028.
  10. Spick, Matt, Katherine Longman, Cecile Frampas, Holly Lewis, Catia Costa, Deborah Dunn Walters, Alex Stewart, et al. 2021. “Changes to the Sebum Lipidome upon COVID-19 Infection Observed via Rapid Sampling from the Skin.” EClinicalMedicine 33 (March). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2021.100786.
  11. Struwe, Weston, Edward Emmott, Melanie Bailey, Michal Sharon, Andrea Sinz, Fernando J Corrales, Kostas Thalassinos, et al. 2020. “The COVID-19 MS Coalition-Accelerating Diagnostics, Prognostics, and Treatment.” Lancet (London, England) 395 (10239): 1761–62. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31211-3.
  12. Theisen, Alina, Rachelle Black, Davide Corinti, Jeffery M. Brown, Bruno Bellina, and Perdita E. Barran. 2018. “Initial Protein Unfolding Events in Ubiquitin, Cytochrome c and Myoglobin Are Revealed with the Use of 213 Nm UVPD Coupled to IM-MS.” Journal of The American Society for Mass Spectrometry, June, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13361-018-1992-0.
  13. Trivedi, Drupad K., Eleanor Sinclair, Yun Xu, Depanjan Sarkar, Caitlin Walton-Doyle, Camilla Liscio, Phine Banks, et al. 2019. “Discovery of Volatile Biomarkers of Parkinson’s Disease from Sebum.” ACS Central Science 5 (4): 599–606. https://doi.org/10.1021/acscentsci.8b00879.