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The HUPO ECR Initiative is excited to welcome two new members to its organization: Jessica Del Castillo Alferez, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, and Isabell Bludau, a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute in Germany. Learn more about these two up-and-coming researchers below.

Jessica Del Castillo Alferez is a Ph.D. candidate at Sanquin Research Amsterdam and the University of Utrecht, Netherlands. Her research focuses on the development of plasma peptidomics and proteomics approaches to unravel fundamental aspects of haemostasis. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry at UDLAP, Mexico with a one-year exchange at McGill University, Canada. After this, she moved to the Netherlands where she completed a Master’s program in Molecular Medicine at the University of Groningen. During her Master’s internship, she entered the field of clinical proteomics while investigating proteomic adaptations of asymptomatic MCADD. Jessica is part of the Symphony Consortium, which aims to improve treatment for bleeding disorders by addressing interindividual variation in bleeding tendency. As part of Symphony, her Ph.D. project seeks to link the proteome to the bleeding phenotype with the use of plasma and blood cell profiles to study modifiers of haemostasis.

Isabell Bludau is a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Prof. Matthias Mann, at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry near Munich. She is specialized in computational proteomics and systems biology. During her Ph.D. with Prof. Ruedi Aebersold at ETH Zurich, Isabell developed computational methods for analyzing large-scale proteomics data. She specifically worked on the detection and quantification of protein complexes. Recently, Isabell’s work focused on the inference of proteoforms and their crosstalk. Isabell’s PhD thesis was awarded the ETH silver medal and her postdoctoral research is supported by a Postdoctoral Mobility fellowship of the Swiss National Science Foundation. Since 2020, Isabell is a member of the organizing committee of the ISCB’s Community of Special Interest (COSI) on Computational Mass Spectrometry (CompMS), which organizes conference sessions and aims to build a community of scientists working in CompMS.

Catchup on the latest HUPO updates in the November HUPOST:

Founded in 2001, HUPO turned 20 this year! We are celebrating 20 years of excellent scientific conferences, community engagement, science advocacy, and advanced education! The annual HUPO world congress has been a key event for proteomics scientists since 2002, and has continued through financial and recent pandemic challenges to this year. HUPO community-centric projects, from the Human Plasma Proteome Project of 2001 to the HPP Grand Challenges of today provide cristallisation points for intensive global collaborations, advancing proteomics science and networking. Strong engagement of early career researchers is culminating in five ECR-organised sessions and five days of online training at this year's HUPO ReCONNECT!

For an interactive look through the intertwined history of HUPO and proteomics, check out https://www.hupo.org/Proteomics-Timeline, for a look at the future of proteomics attend our week-long birthday party, the HUPO ReCONNECT congress at https://hupo2021.org/. We're looking forward to virtually meeting you at www.hupo2021.org!

Participate in the upcoming YPIC webinar “From Proteomics to Careeromics” on Wednesday December 8 at 11 AM CET (10 AM UTC) with Sarah Blackford (MA, Warwick University). As with proteomics (but not as technically complex or advanced!), careers are made of a multitude of facets that, when considered together, start to form a bigger picture. In this webinar, we will look at these aspects individually and together with the aim of harnessing this knowledge to reveal future career possibilities. With examples related to the interests of ECRs, the session will draw on conceptual and practical applications that should help you to make informed career decisions and take action. As always participation is free of charge! To join, register through this link: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIuf-GrpzgjGNQ0iFYdrbIPDrfRS0mcHLDy

HUPO ECR will have a virtual lounge in Gather.Town during HUPO ReCONNECT 2021! Come join us to have a chat, relax, play games, or learn more about ECR activities. Also, you may even get the opportunity to network with some of our surprise guest scientists!!! Keep an eye out for more announcements! HUPO ECR Initiative members will also be at the lounge during conference breaks. This will be THE place to hang out during HUPO ReCONNECT 2021!

Join us for an opportunity to meet fellow junior researchers and mentors from around the globe! The ECR Networking Hour will be the perfect time to foster new connections for future collaborations and jobs. To take full advantage of the session, we strongly encourage all participants to keep their cameras on and participate in the light icebreaker and proteomics-related activities. Are you social media savvy or looking to get started? Keep the engagement going beyond the conference by connecting on Twitter and LinkedIn! We can’t wait to meet you!

The HUPO Early Career Researcher (ECR) Manuscript Competition, sponsored by Taylor & Francis, was fierce! Our three finalists, Dr. Yangsheng Liu (Yale University, USA), Dr. Stacey Malaker (Yale University, USA), and Dr. Mehdi Bouhaddou (University of California, San Francisco, USA), will be presenting their research in a dedicated session at HUPO ReCONNECT 2021 on November 17th, 2021, at 23:00 (UTC), where the final awards will be decided. A cash prize of $1,000 will be awarded to first place and prizes of $500 will be awarded to second and third. You absolutely will not want to miss these presentations!

Thank you to all of the graduate students who participated in the HUPO ReCONNECT 2021 Graduate Student Poster Competition, sponsored by Molecular Omics. The evaluation committee was very impressed by the caliber of the submitted abstracts! We would like to extend a huge congratulations to the eight finalists of the competition, who will be presenting a short talk during a dedicated session at HUPO ReCONNECT 2021 (November 15th, 20:00 UTC):

1. Kruttika Dabke, Cedars Sinai Medical Center
2. Soroush Shahryari Fard, University of Ottawa
3. Carlos López Gil, Vall Hebron Institut Recerca (VHIR)
4. Fynn Hansen, Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry
5. Emily Hashimoto-Roth, University of Ottawa
6. Christin Kappert, MPI of Experimental Medicine
7. Sandeep Kaur, University of South Wales
8. Linda Berg Luecke, Medical College of Wisconsin

An expert committee will declare a winner ($300 prize) and two runner ups ($150 prizes). Good luck to all our finalists!

Three ECR Mentoring Sessions are taking place during HUPO ReCONNECT 2021, and you will not want to miss a single one. Each session will be covering an important topic, answering a slurry of questions from trainees and early career researchers. There to answer your questions will be panels of distinguished and experienced mentors – we can’t wait to see you there!

How to successfully balance a personal life while in academia (November 15th, 2021, 16:00 UTC)

1. Dr. Christine Carapito, University of Strasbourg
2. Dr. Harry Whitwell, Imperial College London
3. Dr. Jennifer Geddes-McAlister, University of Guelph

Scientific Integrity (November 17th, 2021, 20:00 UTC)

1. Dr. Stephen Pennington, University College Dublin
2. Dr. Suzanne Farley, Editorial Director at PLOS
3. Dr. Anne-Claude Gingras, Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute

Getting started on writing manuscripts, grants, and fellowships (November 19th, 2021, 4:30 UTC)

1. Dr. Yasushi Ishihama, Kyoto University
2. Dr. Rebekah L. Gundry, University of Nebraska
3. A representative from Molecular Omics

The Power List is a celebration of influential analytical scientists, and the 2021 Power List is particularly exciting, as it coincides with the Analytical Scientist’s 100th issue. HUPO is so proud that not one, but nine of its members made this year’s list. Congratulations to you all!

1. Dr. Jennifer Van Eyk
2. Dr. John Yates
3. Dr. Joseph Loo
4. Dr. Lingjun Li
5. Dr. Matthias Mann
6. Dr. Renã Robinson
7. Dr. Richard Smith
8. Dr. Ruedi Aebersold   
9. Dr. Ying Ge

To view the complete 2021 Power List, click here!