2022 eastern region candidates 

Ho Jeong Kwon

Professor/Director, Yonsei University, Republic of Korea

Nicolle Packer

Distinguished Professor, Macquarie University, Australia

We now know that sugars attached to proteins on every cell (glycans) are intricately involved in bacterial and viral infection, the immune responses (both innate and acquired), all cancers, lung disease, brain function, fertilisation, cardiovascular disease and a multitude of other cellular mechanisms in human and all other species. My objective is to increase the scientific research activity in this field so that beneficial improvements to our biological understanding, and ultimately treatment, of health and disease can be achieved. To implement my objective, I have spent the last almost 40 years or so (with some time out to rear three children) applying my knowledge and leadership skills to achieve this implementation.

In 2019 I was elected to the Human Proteome Organisation (HUPO) Council as an Australasian representative and in 2021 was awarded the HUPO Distinguished Achievement in Proteomic Sciences Award that recognizes a scientist for distinguished scientific achievements in the field of proteomic science. In 2016 I was Chair of the first HUPO Human Glycoproteomics Initiative (HGI) of B/D HPP and co-organized the first glycoproteomics interlaboratory informatics study in 2018, the results of which were published in Nature Methods. In 2022 I am serving as the Chair of the Biology and Disease Human Proteome Project (B/D HPP) and am on the organizing committee of HUPO2022 in Mexico.

I would like to continue on the HUPO Council for another term so that the activities I have initiated in bringing glycomics to proteomics can be cemented and expanded in order to facilitate the application of glycoproteomics analysis and discovery in the many relevant research areas of the wider proteomics community.

Tony Purcell

Principal Research Fellow and Professor, Monash University, Australia

My doctoral training was in protein and peptide separation and the sensitive detection and characterization of peptides. In 1994, as a postdoc I began a fascination with immune recognition and the key role peptides play in modulating health and disease. After further postdoctoral studies I was awarded a CR Roper Fellowship in 2003 and began an independent research career in which I have applied cutting edge mass spectrometry to key questions in immunology. In 2005 I moved to the Bio21 Institute as the Grimwade Research Fellow at University of Melbourne. In 2008 I was awarded an NHMRC Senior Research Fellowship and in 2009 appointed as a Reader. In July 2012 I was recruited back to Monash as a Professor and Head of Quantitative Proteomics.

I am currently Deputy Head of the Department of Biochemistry at Monash University and Vice-President of the Australasian Proteomics Society. I am passionate about career development and mentoring early career researchers - especially in proteomics which is often complicated by the requirement for access to high end instrumentation and thus limited opportunities for ECRs. I have been active in HUPO since 2010 regularly attending meetings and contributing to initiatives including the Human Immunopeptidome Project and the Human Proteome Project (currently on the SAB).

My laboratory focuses on how the diverse array of peptides presented to the immune system, the immunopeptidome, is influenced by infection, inflammation and the environment. We have made important contributions to understanding the role of antigen presentation, including characterizing peptide epitopes involved in T cell recognition in autoimmunity, allergy, cancer and infectious diseases. I have been instrumental in bringing quantitative tools to immunological studies, in particular the use of multiple reaction monitoring to calculate epitope cell surface expression. My lab was one of the first to adopt new data independent acquisition techniques and apply it to quantitate antigen presentation at the protein and peptide epitope level as well as to understand complex host-pathogen interactions. The application of this technology in the clinic represents an new and exciting direction that falls under the umbrella of HUPO activities and interests.

Morten Thaysen-Anderson

A/Prof, Group Leader, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

Associate Professor Morten Thaysen-Andersen heads the Analytical Glycoimmunology Group at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. His research programme explores how complex carbohydrates (glycans) affect the function of key proteins and peptides in the innate immune system including in inflammation, host-pathogen interactions and cancer. His team develops and applies cutting-edge mass spectrometry-based glycomics and glycoproteomics technologies to map the complexity and dynamics of the immensely heterogenous human glycoproteome, and draws on methods in protein and carbohydrate chemistry and molecular immunology to investigate the structure-function relationship of glycoproteins of particular interest in innate immune processes of relevance to human health and disease.

Having served on the Australia Proteomics Society’s executive committee for five years (2016-21) involving, amongst other achievements, hosting the successful 18th HUPO World Congress in Adelaide 2019 and being a principal force driving the establishment of the Australian Glycoscience Society (Glyco@Oz) in 2021 with ~130 network members, Morten is very well connected across Australasia and internationally. As an experienced scientist, supervisor, mentor, teacher, reviewer, editor, board member and conference organiser, Morten has made profound contributions to the emerging research areas of glycoproteomics and glycoscience. Morten’s interdisciplinary research programme draws on a wide network of national and international collaborators not least colleagues in Europe (where he received his PhD training), in the Americas (where he spent time during his postdoctoral studies) and elsewhere. Further demonstrating his extensive network, Morten is also the Australian representative of the International Glycoconjugate Organization since 2018 and is the co-founder and current Chair of the HUPO Human Glycoproteomics Initiative (HGI), founded 2017, under the B/D-Human Proteome Project.

Morten’s profile makes him ideally positioned to serve on the HUPO Council. If elected, he will make use of his networks and experience in multi-omics research to ensure that HUPO increasingly forms bridges to related disciplines within the life sciences.

Jing Yang

Professor, National Center for Protein Sciences Beijing, China

Dr. Jing Yang's group (www.yangresearchlab.com) is interested in advancing chemical proteomic technologies to answer fundamental questions in redox biology. His group has recently co-developed several “clickable” probes for chemoselective labeling of distinct types of cysteine redox forms. In combination with state-of-the-art chemoproteomics, these probes allow to greatly expand the landscape of the cysteine redoxome in various biological systems, as well as the substrate spectrums of many functionally important enzymatic reducing systems. These studies therefore not only generate many great tools/resources for the field of redox biology, but also provides a great opportunity to study cysteine-mediated redox networks in a range of biological processes and adaptive responses in physiology and pathophysiology, resulting in publications in many leading journals such as Nat Chem, Nat Chem biol, Nat Commun, Nat Protoc, Cell Host Microbe, PNAS, MCP, JPR, and so on. He was selected as one of JPR (J Proteome Res)’s 40 Under 40 in 2021 and joined the Editorial Advisory Board of JPR in 2022. He is currently the Chair of 3rd ECR Council of CNHUPO.