Prof Melanie Bailey Seminar
Prof Melanie Bailey
Physical Sciences of Life, Kings College London, and,
School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering,
University of Surrey
"Progress towards sub-cellular multi-omics"
A Departmental Research Seminar
PLT, The Science Concourse, 13:00 Monday 9 June 2025
Refreshment available outside PLT from 12.45
Abstract
Single-cell analysis is a new and rapidly growing field that is shedding new insight into the cellular mechanisms behind the pathogenesis and treatment of infectious diseases and cancer. Cells, even within a single tissue, culture or biological fluid are highly heterogenous. Analysis of bulk material therefore only provides an average value, meaning that information is lost. Diseases often start within cells and spread spatially, and so it is highly desirable to develop techniques that can probe biomarkers at the single or sub-cellular level.
The SEISMIC facility for spatially resolved single and sub-cellular “omics” is a new multi-user BBSRC facility that is advancing single cell and sub-cellular measurements, for the benefit of bioscientists across the UK. At SESIMC, we use capillary sampling to sample live cells or sub-cellular compartments under microscope observation. This method of sample capture can be coupled to chromatographic separation, which offers additional advantages in mitigating matrix effects and aiding peak assignment. We will show how live single-cell lipidomics can be achieved using capillary-sampled cells [1-3] as well as microfluidics [4]. We will also show single cell lipid profiles of cancer cells respond to drug, infection and radiation treatment. We will present new work showing proof of concept for sub-cellular metallomics and proteomics using this methodology.
The UK National Ion Beam Centre is an EPSRC National Facility that supports over 32 different universities. We are developing new instrumentation to enable multimodal imaging of metals, lipids and metabolites through a unique integration of MeV and keV ion beams. The rationale for this approach will be presented in this talk.
Biography
Melanie Bailey is Professor of Physical Sciences of Life at Kings College London and Professor of Analytical Science at the University of Surrey. She is Director of SEISMIC, a new BBSRC national facility for spatially resolved single and sub-cellular “omics” and is Principal Investigator for an EPSRC funded project to bring new instrumentation for multimodal imaging at the UK National Ion Beam Centre for correlative imaging of metals and other omics markers. She is a member of the international advisory board for the Ion Beam Analysis conference series, International Nuclear Microprobe conference series and the Bragg Institute. She is a Trustee of the Analytical Chemistry Trust Fund and recently obtained a Guiness World Record as “Fastest Marathon Dressed as a Cell” to raise awareness and funding for analytical science. She is Editor in Chief of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s longest running journal “Analyst”.
[1] Lewis, H.-M., et al. (2023). "Nanocapillary sampling coupled to liquid chromatography mass spectrometry delivers single cell drug measurement and lipid fingerprints." Analyst 148(5): 1041-1049.
[2] Saunders, K. D., et al. (2023). "Single-Cell Lipidomics Using Analytical Flow LC-MS Characterizes the Response to Chemotherapy in Cultured Pancreatic Cancer Cells." Analytical Chemistry 95(39): 14727-14735.
[3] von Gerichten, J., et al. (2024). "Single-Cell Untargeted Lipidomics Using Liquid Chromatography and Data-Dependent Acquisition after Live Cell Selection." Analytical Chemistry 96(18): 6922-6929.
[4] Kontiza, A., et al. (2024). "Single-Cell Lipidomics: An Automated and Accessible Microfluidic Workflow Validated by Capillary Sampling." Analytical Chemistry 96(44): 17594-17601.