News

Welcome to the new members stepping in to lead the ECR efforts forward:

• Co-chairs: Charlotte Hutchings and Livia Rosa
• VC Logistics: Emily Hashimoto-Roth
• VC Online Activities: Jessica del Castillo Alferez
• VC Communications: Ireshyn Govender
• HPP Delegates: Christian Moritz (B/D-HPP) and Dongxue Wang (C-HPP)

Keep reading to view their biographies:

Charlotte Hutchings

Charlotte is a final year PhD student in Prof. Kathryn Lilley's Group at the University of Cambridge. Her research currently focuses on the use of expression and subcellular spatial proteomics methods to explore the response of HEK293 cells to the production of viral vectors for gene therapy. Charlotte particularly enjoys the challenge of dealing with large datasets and has become an active member of the Bioconductor community, learning and teaching coding skills around the world as well as publishing multiple data analysis workflow to promote open research and analysis. She also sits on several committees, including the British Society for Proteome Research, HUPO Early Career Researchers and HUPO Marketing and Outreach committee. Charlotte is not only enthusiastic about her research, but is also interested in education, promoting equality in science and being a core member of the proteomics community.

Livia Rosa-Fernandes

Livia, D.Sc., is a Research Fellow in Neuroproteomics at the Macquarie Medical School's Motor Neuron Disease Research Centre. She earned her B.Sc. in Biomedical Sciences and M.Sc. in Biological Sciences with a focus on Genetics from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Dr. Rosa-Fernandes completed her D.Sc. in Medical Sciences at the University of São Paulo Medical School, where she integrated molecular and cellular biology with quantitative proteomics to investigate multidrug resistance in chronic myeloid leukemia. During her postdoctoral research at the University of Southern Denmark, she expanded her expertise in systems biology, studying neurodevelopmental impairment caused by Zika Virus infection. Her current research focuses on the impact of aberrant protein interactions in the development of neurological pathologies. Dr. Rosa-Fernandes is a recipient of the Gilberto B. Domont Award, which honors young scientists' contributions to advancing proteomic sciences. She is member of the Brazilian Proteomics Society council and is engaged in several initiatives to promote knowledge transfer and increase access to scientific education.

Emily Hashimoto-Roth

Emily is a graduate student at the University of Toronto, Canada, pursuing a Ph.D. in Computational Biology and Molecular Genetics under the supervision of Dr. Hannes Röst. Her research aims to leverage mass spectrometry-based proteomics, lipidomics, metabolomics, and computational methods to better understand the onset and progression of gestational diabetes mellitus and future development of type II diabetes. Previously, she completed her M.Sc. in Biochemistry specializing in Bioinformatics at the University of Ottawa, Canada, under the co-supervision of Dr. Mathieu Lavallée-Adam and Dr. Steffany Bennett, where her research focused on the application of machine learning algorithms to mine and analyze protein-protein interaction datasets. Her passion for research, however, extends beyond the lab. Since 2020, she has also been a member of the Canadian National Proteomics Network and Human Proteome Organization, helping to strengthen the proteomics field by fostering welcoming communities for researchers of all career stages to meet and collaborate.

Jessica del Castillo Alferez

Jessica is a PhD candidate at Sanquin Research, Amsterdam and  affiliated to University of Utrecht, Netherlands. She is part of the Symphony consortium, which aims to improve treatment for hemostatic disorders by addressing interindividual variations in bleeding tendencies. Her PhD research seeks to link the proteome to the bleeding phenotype by profiling plasma and blood cells to identify haemostasis modifiers. Her work focuses on proteomic profiling of patients to monitor response to treatment in bleeding disorders as well as applying plasma peptidomics to investigate fundamental aspects of haemostasis. Jessica is passionate about clinical proteomics, a field she entered during her master’s internship at the University of Groningen while studying proteomic adaptations in asymptomatic MCADD. Beyond her research, Jessica is an enthusiastic member of the HUPO ECR Committee since 2022 and has been actively involved in the organization of panel discussions and congress activities such as mentoring sessions and competitions. In her role as vice chair, she will contribute to the organization of panel sessions to provide a space for the proteomics community  to come together and discuss important topics about navigating a career.

Ireshyn Govender

Ireshyn serves as a senior scientist at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa. He commenced his tenure at CSIR in 2013 as a candidate researcher, concentrating his efforts on clinical proteomics within the realm of precision medicine for HIV/AIDS. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of the Witwatersrand in 2019. Ireshyn is actively involved in clinical research groups that leverage proteomics to tackle diseases prevalent in South Africa and among underrepresented populations, focusing on the identification of prognostic and/or diagnostic protein biomarker panels. Additionally, he holds the position of vice-chairperson and is a member of the executive committee of the South African Association for Mass Spectrometry (SAAMS). In his new capacity as VC Communications of the HUPO ECR Committee, he aims to further highlight the exceptional contributions of early-career researchers and to enhance the connection between specialized scientific endeavours and the broader public.

Christian Moritz 

Christian is a researcher at the University Hospital of Saint-Étienne, France. He did his PhD in the field of neuroproteomics in Kaiserslautern/Germany and moved to translational biomedical research for his postdoc projects in France. There, he is screening the human proteome for novel autoantigens targeted by serum antibodies of patients with rare neuropathies.

Dongxue Wang

Dongxue is currently an associate research professor at the National Center for Protein Sciences in Beijing (NCPSB) and the head of the mass spectrometry platform at the π-HuB Project Infrastructure in Guangzhou, China. She obtained her doctoral degree in proteomics in Dr. Bernhard Kuster's group at the Technical University of Munich. After that, she joined NCPSB in Beijing in 2019 and the π-HuB Project Infrastructure in Guangzhou in 2021. Dongxue has been focusing on developing and applying mass spectrometry-based proteomics technologies, integrating with clinical data and other omics, to understand human biology and diseases better. During her PhD, she and colleagues established the most comprehensive proteome and transcriptome atlas of 29 healthy human tissues, providing a protein expression baseline for examining human health and diseases. As a scientist at the National Center for Protein Science and the π-HuB Project Infrastructure, she and her team have been developing high-throughput and fully automated proteomics pipelines. They apply these methods in analyzing large cohorts of clinical samples to discover novel biomarkers and drug targets for nasopharyngeal cancer such as nasopharyngeal carcinoma, melanoma, lung adenocarcinoma, and polycystic ovary syndrome, among others. As a member of the HUPO community and the ECR committee, Dongxue looks forward to serving as a vital link and making valuable contributions to the activities of the ECR and HPP committees.