People

David Wishart

Dr. David Wishart (PhD Yale, 1991) is a Professor in the Departments of Biological Sciences and Computing Science at the University of Alberta. He is also a senior research officer and the co-director of the Nanobiology program at the NRC’s National Institute for Nanotechnology (NINT). He has been with the University of Alberta since 1995 and has published more than 180 articles in various peer reviewed journals. His research interests span many areas including structural biology, bioinformatics, prion biology, nanobiology and metabolomics. From 2006-2009, Dr. Wishart led the “Human Metabolome Project” (HMP), a multi-university, multi-investigator project that catalogued all of the known metabolites in human tissues and biofluids. Using advanced methods in NMR spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, multi-dimensional chromatography and machine learning Dr. Wishart and his colleagues identified or found evidence for more than 8500 endogenous metabolites. This information has been archived on a freely accessible web-resource called the Human Metabolome Database (HMDB). The methods and ideas developed for the HMP have helped lay the foundation for a number of clinical metabolomics projects currently being pursued in his lab. These include studies of several cancer biomarkers, identifying organ transplant biomarkers, exploring wound healing mechanisms, identifying early biomarkers of prion and prion-like diseases, and investigating biomarkers of common diseases in cows. Dr. Wishart has published more than 40 papers in the field of metabolomics and currently directs the Metabolomics Innovation Centre.

Christoph Borchers

Dr. Christoph Borchers received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Konstanz, Germany. After his post-doctoral training and employment as a staff scientist at NIEHS/NIH/RTP, in North Carolina, he became the director of the Duke – UNC Proteomics Facility and held a faculty position at the UNC Medical School in Chapel Hill, NC (2001-2006). Since then, Dr. Borchers has been employed at the University of Victoria (UVic), Canada and holds the current positions of Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology and the Don and Eleanor Rix BC Leadership Chair in Biomedical and Environmental Proteomics. He is also the Director of the UVic – Genome BC Proteomics Centre, which is one out of six Genome Canada funded Science & Technology Innovation Centres and the only one solely devoted to proteomics.

His research is centred around the improvement, development and application of proteomics technologies with a major focus on techniques for quantitative targeted proteomics for clinical diagnostics. For his research, multiplexed LC-MRM-MS approaches and the immuno-MALDI (iMALDI) technique are of particular interest. Another focus of Dr. Borchers’ research is centred on technology development and application of the combined approach of protein chemistry and mass spectrometry for structural proteomics. Dr. Borchers has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals and is the founder and CSO of two companies, Creative Molecules. Inc. and MRM Proteomics Inc. He is also involved in promoting proteomic research and education through his function as HUPO International Council Member, co-leader and Scientific Director of the British Columbia Proteomics Network and President of the Canadian National Proteomics Network.

Liang Li

Dr. Liang Li obtained his PhD from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan and joined the Department of Chemistry at the University of Alberta in July 1989, where he is now a Professor of Chemistry, Adjunct professor of Biochemistry and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Analytical Chemistry. Dr. Li's research interest is in the area of developing analytical mass spectrometry for biomolecule and polymer analysis, including proteomics and metabolomics applications. He has published 170 papers and given over 195 invited lectures. He holds 4 US patents. He has won several awards including the Rutherford Memorial Medal in Chemistry from the Royal Society of Canada (2003), the F.P. Lossing Award from the Canadian Society for Mass Spectrometry (2006), the Maxxam Award from the Canadian Society of Chemistry (2009) and the Gerhard Herzberg Award from the Canadian Society for Analytical Sciences and Spectroscopy (2010). Dr. Li has served on editorial boards of several journals and is an editor of Analytica Chimica Acta.