ABRF WIN Project ANTIBODY CHARACTERIZATION and ASMS!!!

I need to add some stuff to my bucket list so I've got more reasons to not die than the fact there is probably an elderly dog out there in the world with diabetes, allopecia and incontinence that needs me.

2019 is rocking here in Columbia, MD!! ---

Invited talk(s) at ABRF!! ("Making a core lab nimble and efficient" and "introducing the WIN antibody characterization community project" -- actually, this needs it's own sentence...)

Here is the first slide!

Are you guys getting inundated with antibody and antibody drug characterization requests?!? If you aren't, there are probably people at your university or facility who are doing this and sending it elsewhere.

In the U.S. like 2 months ago -- FDA cleared MoxywoxytootymomoloopyMab and it's an antibody with powerful drugs on it -- it localizes to CD22 (I think) on cancer cells and then blows them up. BOOM. And there are dozens like it trying to get clearance. Antibody drugs are coming down the pipeline like crazy AND mass spectrometry is the only way you can make sure 1) verify the sequence identity 2) verify that drug conjugations were successful

Here is the idea for the community study -- How is everyone doing this?!??! I started counting them up and I came up with over a dozen different combinations of ways that you could conceivably characterize a monoclonal antibody with mass spectrometry. What if we (ABRF WIN!) found labs that do this -- send them antibodies -- and we all work together to figure out: 1) How everyone is doing it 2) What is the best way?

If you were on the fence about being in San Antonio for ABRF (I know...what are the odds the Spurs have 3 games on the road....?) maybe the fact that you've got 100 requests to do mAB characterization in your inbox you're ignoring is a reason to go?

OFF TOPIC!!

AND I JUST FOUND OUT TODAY --- I'M SPEAKING AT ASMS!!! I speak on Thursday! YES, I also thought the conference ended on Wednesday. It doesn't!  I have to change my AirBnB and flights! I think one organizer was like -- "come on, just let Ben have a milk crate to stand on outside the convention center on Friday or something. He's been making requests to talk for like 18 years. Who knows, he might be too old to travel next year...."  THANK YOU ORGANIZERS!!

I'm speaking on the work Conor Jenkins and I are doing with OptysTech using stupid amounts of their cloud processing power to find cancer mutations -- without any genetics based sequencing required. There is a preprint with a few details out now and some super promising results in hand that we're working on clarifying/verifying.

THANK YOU ORGANIZERS!  I LOVE TALKING ABOUT MASS SPECTROMETRY!!!