Newlands Lecture Series

‘Weighing Molecules to Diagnose Disease, from Heel Prick to Skin Swab’

23 April 2025
Professor Perdita Barran
Professor of Mass Spectrometry at the University of Manchester 

• Time: 16:00 – 17:00 BST 

• Venue: CAGB LT 200, City and Guilds Building

• Location: Imperial College London, South Kensington campus, Imperial College Road, London, SW7 2AZ

The South Kensington campus is easily accessed via a 10 minute walk from South Kensington tube station. There is also space for car/coach drop-off and pick-up inside the entrance to Imperial College Road (please contact us for details).

About the talk

This lecture is recommended for students in Years 10-13, their teachers and parents.  

Every year more than 30 million babies worldwide are screened for inborn metabolic disorders directly after birth with a heel prick assay that takes a tiny amount of blood to be analysed with a mass spectrometer¹. In the UK every baby born is screened in this way. This program has improved the health and life chances of many babies.

Our research program uses mass spectrometry (MS) to find biomarkers for Parkinson’s disease to enable diagnosis ^2–5 . We do this from endogenous compounds obtained from skin swabs. In lab, we can determine if an individual has PD with >95% accuracy.  Our unique research program has been initiated by Mrs. Joy Milne, a retired nurse from Perth who noticed a change in her husband's body odour 11 years before his clinical diagnosis of Parkinson's disease (PD). Joy noticed the same distinctive odour was associated with other PD sufferers and hence linked it to onset of the disease.

Recently we demonstrated the equivalence of sebum to serum as a diagnostic biofluid⁶ and shown that sebum can be stored at room temperature and still be useful ⁷

Based on Joy's observation, with simple non-invasive sampling of skin from the upper back, we have developed a diagnostic platform that is able to classify PD from sebum samples with >95% accuracy. The focus of our work to date has been to detect and identify the compound(s) that encompass the unique odour of PD. We have now assessed the feasibility and quality of information provided by using sebum as a diagnostic biofluid via multiple mass spectrometry (MS) based analytical methods, and are now positioned to translate these methods, by incorporating clinical data to stratify PD diagnosis from prodromal to overt.

This talk will discuss our methodological approach, recent findings and give a perspective on how non-invasive sampling and mass spectrometry could play a major role for prevention and effective treatment of disease.

About the lecturer

Professor Barran holds a Chair of Mass Spectrometry in the Department of Chemistry and is the Director of the Michael Barber Centre for Collaborative Mass Spectrometry and a member of Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, The University of Manchester, UK.

She is the deputy chair of the Infrastructure and Capital Advisory Group for the Medical Research Council, UK.

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 35 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.

References

(1)         Millington, D. S. How Mass Spectrometry Revolutionized Newborn Screening. J. Mass Spectrom. Adv. Clin. Lab 2024, 32, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmsacl.2024.01.006.

(2)         Trivedi, D. K. D. K.; Sinclair, E.; Xu, Y.; Sarkar, D.; Walton-Doyle, C.; Liscio, C.; Banks, P.; Milne, J.; Silverdale, M.; Kunath, T.; Goodacre, R.; Barran, P. Discovery of Volatile Biomarkers of Parkinson’s Disease from Sebum. ACS Cent. Sci. 2019, 5 (4), 599–606. https://doi.org/10.1021/acscentsci.8b00879.

(3)         Sinclair, E.; Trivedi, D. K.; Sarkar, D.; Walton-Doyle, C.; Milne, J.; Kunath, T.; Rijs, A. M.; de Bie, R. M. A.; Goodacre, R.; Silverdale, M.; Barran, Perdita. Metabolomics of Sebum Reveals Lipid Dysregulation in Parkinson’s Disease. Nat. Commun. 2021, 12 (1), 1592. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21669-4.

(4)         Sinclair, E.; Walton-Doyle, C.; Sarkar, D.; Hollywood, K. A.; Milne, J.; Lim, S. H.; Kunath, T.; Rijs, A. M.; de Bie, R. M. A.; Silverdale, M.; Trivedi, D. K.; Barran, Perdita. Validating Differential Volatilome Profiles in Parkinson’s Disease. ACS Cent. Sci. 2021, 7 (2), 300–306. https://doi.org/10.1021/acscentsci.0c01028.

(5)         Sarkar, D.; Sinclair, E.; Lim, S. H.; Walton-Doyle, C.; Jafri, K.; Milne, J.; Vissers, J. P. C.; Richardson, K.; Trivedi, D. K.; Silverdale, M.; Barran, P. Paper Spray Ionization Ion Mobility Mass Spectrometry of Sebum Classifies Biomarker Classes for the Diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease. JACS Au 2022, 2 (9), 2013–2022. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacsau.2c00300.

(6)         Spick, M.; Lewis, H.-M.; Frampas, C. F.; Longman, K.; Costa, C.; Stewart, A.; Dunn-Walters, D.; Greener, D.; Evetts, G.; Wilde, M. J.; Sinclair, E.; Barran, P. E.; Skene, D. J.; Bailey, M. J. An Integrated Analysis and Comparison of Serum, Saliva and Sebum for COVID-19 Metabolomics. Sci. Rep. 2022, 12 (1), 11867. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-16123-4.

(7)         Walton-Doyle, C.; Sinclair, E.; Begum, H.; Hollywood, K. A.; Trivedi, D. K.; Barran, P. How Storage Post Sampling Influences the Stability of Sebum When Used for Mass Spectrometry Metabolomics Analysis? Sci. Rep. 2024, 14 (1), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-71598-7. 

How to book:

The lecture is free, but spaces are limited and are available on a first-booking basis. We will be holding a reserve list, in case of cancellations.

Please complete the booking reservation to reserve a place.  Bookings will close on Monday 7 April 2025. For any enquiries regarding accessibility arrangements or your booking, please see contact details below.

Optional activities:

Please arrive 15 minutes before your allocated time

*The tour of the Chemical kitchen will include a demo of the encapsulation of food products using alginate.  Participants will be able to get hands-on and will be able to eat the result of what they make.

Contact Details:

For any enquiries related to bookings, activities, access arrangements or parking, please contact Raj Sandhu or Jessie Allen (Department of Chemistry Outreach).

You may also be interested in:

Our previous Newlands Lecture, was given by Prof Gill Reid in 2024, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry; President of the RSC

Molecular Inorganic Chemistry – new approaches towards medical imaging agents and 2D semiconductors

April 2024 lecture 
With Professor Gill Reid BSc, PhD, FRSC, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry; President of the RSC

Professor Gill Reid is a Professor of Inorganic Chemistry and former Head of the School of Chemistry at the University of Southampton. She became President-Elect of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) in July 2020 and RSC President in 2022.

The talk discussed how, as chemists, we can create new compounds that have specific features built in to allow them to be exploited for very diverse applications. This was exemplified through two distinct targets.

Firstly, Prof. Reid focused on some of the key design features of metal-containing compounds that are necessary for effective binding of the fluorine-18 radioisotope for the development of next generation medical imaging agents.

She then discussed briefly the design of molecular precursor compounds that allow the controlled electrochemical growth of 2-dimensional layered semiconductors, towards next generation electronics applications.

About the lecturer                                                                                                                   

Gill has a keen interest in chemistry education, outreach, and public engagement. Currently, her teaching encompasses various subjects, including transition metal and main group coordination chemistry, as well as macrocyclic chemistry.

 Gill joined the University of Southampton in 1991 as a Lecturer in Inorganic Chemistry. She was Director of Chemistry Outreach for 10 years (2000-2010), concurrently leading successful projects supported by EPSRC and the RSC. Gill became a Professor in 2006, and was Head of School from 2016-2020. Her contributions were acknowledged with the University of Southampton Vice Chancellor's Award for Teaching in Chemistry in 2006 and an RSC Award for Achievement in the Promotion of Chemistry in 2007. She has also served as an External Examiner for undergraduate degree programs in multiple UK Chemistry Departments.

Gill chaired the RSC Outreach Working Group from 2014 to 2018 and played a key role in organizing the 'Taking Technology Smaller' exhibit at the 2015 Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition, based on the EPSRC flagship Programme, 'Supercritical Fluid Electrodeposition.'

Gill has presented her research on fundamental studies and applications of synthetic coordination and organometallic chemistry, on many occasions, including a Discourse at the Royal Institution in September 2023. She also discussed how Chemistry is tackling some of society’s greatest challenges for the BBC Radio 4 show, “The Life Scientific”.

She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences and a recipient of the IUPAC 2023 Distinguished Women in Chemistry Award.

Past lectures

• 2023 - 'The Magic of Molecular Machines’ by Professor David Leigh FRS, FRSE, FRSC, MAE
• 2021 - 'Chemistry and Sustainability: healthy planet, healthy future' by Professor Tom Welton OBE FRSC
• 2019 - 'Doing chemistry with electrons' by Professor Philip N Bartlett FRS FRSC
• 2018 – 'Functional Coatings' by Professor Ivan Parkin
• 2016 – 'From Waste to Wealth' by Professor James Clark
• 2015 – 'Landing on a Comet' by Professor Monica Grady CBE
• 2014 – 'Strange Ice' by Professor Andrea Sella
• 2013 – 'A Little Light Relief' by Professor David Phillips FRS

About John Newlands

This lecture series is named after John Alexander Reina Newlands, who was born in Lambeth, South London, and educated at the Royal College of Chemistry - a forerunner of Imperial College London. He is best known for devising an early form of the Periodic Table of the Elements. 

In the middle of the 19th century many of the elements we know today had been discovered and characterised. Chemists had begun attempts to sort them into a logical sequence based on their chemical properties. In 1864, Newlands listed the known elements in order of increasing atomic mass and found a repeating pattern of properties for each eighth element. He developed a rudimentary form of periodicity that he called the 'Law of Octaves'. However, his scheme failed when extended to the heavier elements and was therefore not accepted by his contemporaries.

In 1868, Mendeleev published his arrangement of the elements that forms the basis of the Periodic Table we know today. Mendeleev's table enabled him to predict the existence and properties of hitherto unknown elements. The discovery of these 'missing' elements and confirmation of their properties led to the rapid acceptance of Mendeleev's table.

Acknowledgements

This lecture series is organised by the Department of Chemistry in collaboration with Outreach team. The lectures are supported by the Royal Society of Chemistry Chilterns and Middlesex section, with special thanks to Dr Stephen Robinson.