Dr. Kelly M. Hines, University of Georgia
Enabling High-Throughput Multi-Omics with Ion Mobility-Mass Spectrometry
Kelly M. Hines
Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Georgia, Athens, GA
There is growing interest and appreciation in the use of mass spectrometry-based multi-omics approaches to study biological processes and diseases from a systems-level perspective. The performance of discovery-level multi-omics typically involves the partitioning of a complex sample in its individual components, followed by thorough analysis of each “ome” under optimized LC and MS conditions. However, these multi-omics experiments must be streamlined before their findings can be implemented into diagnostic or prognostic applications. The rapid gas-phase structural separations afforded by IM-MS provides an opportunity for high-throughput measurements of biological samples containing mixtures of lipids, metabolites, peptides, and other biochemicals. We are developing methods for single injection high-throughput multi-omics based on flow injection analysis (FI) and ion mobility-mass spectrometry (IM-MS). The feasibility and advantages of FI-IM-MS will be demonstrated for the identification of microorganisms to the species and strain levels using integrated lipidomic and metabolomic features.
Kelly Hines is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Georgia. Kelly graduated from the University of Florida in 2009 with a B.S. in Chemistry. She completed her Ph.D. in Chemistry at Vanderbilt University with John A. McLean, where she used ion mobility-mass spectrometry (IM-MS) to identify metabolite, lipid, and peptide signatures of disease from complex biological samples. After receiving her Ph.D. in 2014, Kelly completed a one-year postdoctoral fellowship in the Mayo Clinic Regional Metabolomics Core where she established quantitative MS methods for lipidomics and protein metabolism. In 2015, Kelly joined the lab of Libin Xu at the University of Washington School of Pharmacy. Her work in the Xu Lab, supported in part by a U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention (USP) Global Fellowship, focused on high-throughput IM-MS measurements of drugs and small molecules, and LC-IM-MS methods for lipidomics. She joined the faculty at UGA in 2019, where her lab is using ion mobility-mass spectrometry to investigate the lipids, metabolites, and other molecules that distinguish bacteria species, strains, and antibiotic resistance phenotypes. Kelly is the recipient of an ASMS Research Award and the Fred C. Davison Early Career Scholar Award from the University of Georgia Office of Research.











