18th Symposium on the Practical Applications of Mass Spectrometry in the Biotechnology Industry

~ Virtual Event ~

Mass Spec 2021: Practical Applications of Mass Spectrometry in the Biotechnology Industry

The focus of this Symposium is the practical application of mass spectrometry (MS) in the biotechnology industry. Mass Spectrometry is a critical analytical technology used in the discovery, development, and commercialization of biopharmaceuticals. Mass Spec 2021 provides an interactive forum to share experiences, insights, and novel developments between industry, academia, and regulatory agencies worldwide. The goals of the symposium are to communicate best practices and innovative approaches for mass spectrometry applications in biopharma, as well as promote colleague networking and open discussions, thereby allowing attendees to advance their own projects more efficiently and confidently. The Symposium will be held as a virtual conference over a period of four days and devoted to practical concerns in the use of mass spectrometry within the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries.

Key issues for discussion:

– Use of MS in conventional characterization assays such as peptide mapping,
ion exchange HPLC, capillary electrophoresis, etc. for elucidating and
monitoring product quality attributes

– Utility of MS for the analysis of process-related impurities, such as host cell proteins,
as well as for process design and optimization (attribute measurements, proteomics and metabolomics)

– Importance of MS in the early predevelopment stages for molecular design
and developability studies, including bioactive PTM elucidation,
hotspot analysis and biotransformation studies

– Introduction of MS in the QC laboratory, validation/transfer/compliance strategy,
system suitability/assay acceptance criteria

– Expectations from regulatory agencies on MS based assays for
product characterization, comparability, biosimilarity, release and stability,
lifecycle management, gene therapy, new modalities

– Technical challenges regarding MS quantitation, ion suppression effects,
complete sequence coverage, intact glycoprotein/capsid analysis,
disulfide bond elucidation, N-glycan profiling, isomerization events,
higher order structure analysis, RNA/DNA analysis, etc.

– Advances in automated data analysis software for MS
and best practices for sharing MS results

– Applications of MS for high throughput screening of cell-lines,
raw materials, in-process samples, stability samples

– Benchmarking of new technology.