Amy Druschitz is the Technology Development Manager at Croda Pharma and leads the Formulations Division at Avanti Research™. With over 20 years of experience in research, development, and clinical production, she drives innovation in lipid-based drug delivery systems, including liposomes, lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), and polymer-lipid hybrids. Trained in biochemistry, Amy combines strong scientific expertise with practical formulation insight to design and troubleshoot complex delivery systems. Her work focuses on developing materials and workflows that enable effective delivery of vaccines and therapeutics. Amy also advances lipidomics applications through strategic collaborations, product launches, and translational programs that bridge laboratory research with commercial success.

Dr Anne K Bendt is Principal Investigator at SLING, the Singapore Lipidomics Incubator at the National University of Singapore. She focuses on translating mass spectrometry technologies into real world applications for lipids and small molecules. Recognizing the need for rigorous quality standards in clinical testing, she recently oversaw the successful implementation of ISO 15189 accredited workflows for a clinical steroid panel. Anne is passionate about education and contributes extensively to SLING workshops and the “ic lipid” training series. She also co instructs the international “Lipidomics 101” course. She serves on the IFCC Metabolomics working group, the ILS Clinical Lipidomics steering committee, and is an Associate Editor for JMSACL. In 2025, she joined the Metabolomics Society Board. She co founded FeMS in 2019 and serves as its Chair.

During his career, Dr. Aswin Verhoeven mastered many aspects of the rich analytical technique that is Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR). Working under Prof. B.H. Meier at the ETH Zurich, he explored the quantum mechanical basis of NMR. His PhD research focused on solid-state NMR analysis of molecular conformations in crystalline solids. During his postdoctoral work in the group of Prof. M. Jansen at the Max-Planck Institute for Solid-State Science in Stuttgart, Germany, he used NMR to study the structure and dynamics of quaternary ceramics and solid electrolytes. Currently he is a senior researcher focusing on metabolomics and lipoprotein analysis at Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), first working under Prof. André Deelder and later under Prof. Martin Giera.

Carsten studied chemistry at the University of Bremen, Germany and left with a PhD for a postdoc with the later Nobel laureate Roger Tsien in 1990. He started his own lab back in Bremen in 1993 and moved to the MPI for Molecular Physiology in Dortmund in 2000. From 2001 to 2019, he served as a group leader and later a tenured senior scientist at EMBL Heidelberg, Germany. In 2016, Carsten was appointed Chair of the Department of Chemical Physiology and Biochemistry at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, OR. One of his research interests is focused on the role of lipids in disease. He uses chemical biology to determine how changes in lipids translate into the protein world.

Chetin Baloglu is the LIPID MAPS web developer at the Babraham Institute, Cambridge. He received his Ph.D. in 2010 at the University of Cambridge.

Christian Metallo is a professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and holds the Daniel and Martina Lewis Chair. He is also an adjunct professor of bioengineering at UC San Diego. His laboratory integrates engineering approaches, stable isotope tracing, mass spectrometry, and molecular biology tools to dissect how metabolic dysregulation contributes to human disease. Key focus areas include cancer, macular disease, neurodegeneration, and diabetes. Christian received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before starting his lab at UC San Diego in 2011. He was the recipient of a Searle Scholar Award and a Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, and he is a fellow in the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

Emily is a Research Scientist at Shimadzu Corporation, working with cutting edge technology in mass spectrometry. Her role involves developing applications using the latest instrumentation for many different fields including metabolomics, lipidomics and toxicology, as well as to support the research and development of new software solutions for processing and analysing mass spectrometry data. Before joining Shimadzu, Emily was a PhD student in Manchester and a postdoctoral researcher in Madrid and Glasgow, specialising in high resolution accurate mass technologies for metabolomics and lipidomics.

Eoin Fahy is the project coordinator for the Metabolomics Workbench/National Metabolomics Data Repository at the University of California San Diego. Previously from 2003 to 2016 he served a similar role on the LIPID MAPS project where he designed and implemented the infrastucture for the LIPID MAPS website. He holds a B.Sc. in Biochemistry from the University of Galway and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of British Columbia.

Evelyn Rampler is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Analytical Chemistry, University of Vienna. She studied biotechnology and completed her PhD in analytical chemistry at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna. Following two independent postdoctoral appointments at the Institute of Molecular Pathology and the University of Vienna, as well as multiple international research stays in the United States, Germany, and Australia, she developed extensive expertise in LC-MS-based proteomics, glycomics, lipidomics, and metabolomics. Her research group focuses on high-resolution mass spectrometry-based analysis of glyco(sphingo)lipids across diverse biological matrices, leveraging advanced separation and fragmentation strategies. She currently serves as re-elected President of the Austrian Proteomics and Metabolomics Association and is a member of the LIPID MAPS consortium with a focus on complex glycosphingolipids.

Federico Torta is a Research Assistant Professor at the Signature Research Program in Cardiovascular & Metabolic Disorders, Duke-NUS Medical School and at the Singapore Lipidomics Incubator (SLING), Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore. He is also the director of the lipidomics unit of SingMass, the Singapore National Laboratory for Mass Spectrometry. He received his Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry from the University of Parma, Italy. His expertise includes sphingolipidomics, high-throughput technologies for the assessment of lipidomes in large human cohorts and the study of protein-lipid complexes.

Dr. Haibo Jiang obtained his BSc from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and completed his PhD and postdoctoral research at the University of Oxford. From 2015 to 2021, he held positions as Lecturer, Group Leader, and Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia, and served as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles from 2016 to 2019. In 2021, Dr. Jiang was selected for Hong Kong’s Global STEM Professorship and joined The University of Hong Kong as an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry. Supported by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, he established the JC STEM Lab of Molecular Imaging. Dr. Jiang’s recent research focuses on developing and applying advanced chemical imaging technologies. He has developed multimodal correlative chemical imaging methods that integrate nanoscale secondary ion mass spectrometry (NanoSIMS) with stable-isotope molecular labeling. This technology platform enables direct visualization of multiple classes of biological molecules (e.g., lipids) within specific subcellular organelles, advancing the study of critical biomolecule transport and metabolic processes.

Helena earned her bachelor's degree in chemistry from the University of Campinas and her master's and Ph.D. from São Paulo State University, with a focus on plant specialized metabolites. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California San Diego in the Dorrestein Lab and has expanded her expertise to incorporate metabolomics and data science to develop new computational approaches to mine large-scale mass spectrometry datasets for the discovery of previously unknown molecules.

Ingela Lanekoff is a Professor of Analytical Chemistry and research leader in the Department of Life Sciences at Uppsala University, Sweden. She received her PhD in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Gothenburg in 2011, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. In 2014, she established her independent research group at Uppsala University. Her work focuses on innovative mass spectrometry, with particular emphasis on developing and applying advanced MS methodologies for spatial and cellular metabolomics. She has pioneered several analytical platforms, including surface sampling capillary electrophoresis (SS CE), direct infusion probe (DIP) analysis, pneumatically assisted nano DESI mass spectrometry imaging (PA nano DESI MSI), and the ion to image (i2i) software for MSI and MS2I data processing.

Jakub Idkowiak earned his Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from the University of Pardubice, Czech Republic, under the supervision of Professor Michal Holčapek, where he specialized in mass spectrometry of lipids and their quantitation in biological matrices. He is currently a research associate in the Laboratory of Lipid Metabolism and Cancer, led by Professor Johannes V. Swinnen, at the Leuven Cancer Institute and the Leuven Institute for Single Cell Omics, Department of Oncology, KU Leuven, Belgium. His research centers on analytical methods for lipid detection and quantification, with a focus on direct infusion mass spectrometry, mass spectrometry imaging, and liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry combinations. He is also interested in the statistical analysis and visualization of -omics data.

Jens Soltwisch studied physics in Münster and obtained his PhD in 2012. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the AMOLF institute in Amsterdam in 2013, he returned to Münster and completed his habilitation there in 2022. He is currently working as a group leader for “Biomedical Mass Spectrometry” in the Institute of Hygiene at the University of Münster. He has been involved in fundamental research and method development centering on MALDI mass spectrometry. After investigating the influence of laser parameters on the MALDI-process, in recent years his attention has shifted towards method development in MALDI-MSI imaging as well as post-ionization modalities such as MALDI-2 with a focus on high spatial resolution.

Judith Simcox is an assistant professor of biochemistry at University of Wisconsin-Madison. The research objectives of my laboratory are to investigate the mechanisms that promote energy expenditure during adaptive thermogenesis. Our work focuses on identifying transcriptional regulators of hepatic lipid processing that fuel thermogenesis and discovering lipid signaling pathways that orchestrate multi-organ communication during cold stress.

Jürgen Hartler is a bioinformatician specializing in the development of algorithms and tools for mass spectrometry data analysis, particularly for lipidomics. He has been awarded a DOC and Max Kade fellowship by the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the latter allowing him to work at the LIPID MAPS laboratory at UC San Diego. His achievements in lipidomics were recognized by the Stefan Schuy award (ÖGBMT) and the distinguished Mattauch-Herzog award (German Society for Mass Spectrometry – DGMS). Currently, he is an assistant professor at the University of Graz, heading the Computational Pharmacology group and serving as deputy director of the Doctoral School of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Besides his work on MS data annotation, he also focuses on data standardization, and quality assessment methods.

Kasparas Petkevicius is a biochemist specialising in phospholipid metabolism. He obtained a BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Bath in 2013 and completed a Wellcome Trust PhD at the University of Cambridge in 2018, where he studied macrophage phospholipid metabolism in obesity. He then undertook postdoctoral training at AstraZeneca in Sweden, investigating novel proteins involved in phospholipid metabolism, and progressed to Associate Principal Scientist, focusing on metabolic disease drug discovery. In 2023, he joined the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit as a junior group leader. His laboratory specialises in phospholipid remodelling, with a particular focus on bis(monoacylglycero)phosphate (BMP).

Martin Giera, Ph.D., studied pharmacy in Heidelberg and Munich and completed international research stays as a visiting scientist at Harvard Medical School and the Scripps Research Institute. He is Professor of Translational Metabolomics and Lipidomics and Head of the Metabolomics Group at Leiden University Medical Center. His work focuses on advanced metabolomics and lipidomics technologies, analytical innovation, drug development, and pathway-resolved biochemistry in translational biomedical research. He is actively involved in several multinational research consortia, serves on multiple editorial boards, and contributes to various scientific committees. His research integrates cutting-edge mass spectrometry with biological and clinical applications to better understand disease mechanisms and therapeutic opportunities. Martin Giera has authored more than 250 scientific publications and books.

Dr Matthew Conroy is the senior biocurator for the LIPID MAPS databases, responsible for data addition and integrity across the various resources. He has extensive experience in molecular data curation, having previously worked as a curator for the Protein Data Bank (PDB) at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) for ten years. His background is in protein structural biology.

Dr. Natasa Giallourou is Associate Director of Scientific Strategy at Metabolon, where she advances scientific initiatives, product strategy, and external partnerships that translate metabolomics data into scalable solutions for research, and commercial innovation. Prior to joining Metabolon, Natasa served as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at biobank.cy. Her research projects involved integrating metabolomic data with other 'omics' data in population-based studies, with a focus on identifying biomarkers for complex diseases. She has also worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Imperial College London, where she specialized in utilizing metabolic phenotyping to address global health challenges, particularly in the field of public health nutrition. Natasa served on the Board of Directors of the International Metabolomics Society between 2020-2025 and continues to actively contribute to the community though participation in diverse initiatives across education, training and industry engagement.

Nathalie Poupin is a research scientist at INRAE, at the TOXALIM research Centre in food toxicology (Toulouse, France), in the MeX (Metabolism and Xenobiotics) team, co-headed by D. Zalko and F. Jourdan. Her main research topic is the exploration of the effects of food contaminants on the human metabolic network, using systemic omics and modelling approaches. She is specialized in the analysis of multi-omics data in the context of genome-scale metabolic networks and has been particularly involved in developing dynamic and predictive mathematical models of metabolic processes with the aim to identify potential metabolic alterations that are linked to particular pathophysiological or nutritional conditions.

Palina graduated from Belarusian State University in 2019 with a degree in Radiation Chemistry. She then earned a joint Master's degree in Advanced Spectroscopy in Chemistry from the University of Lille and the University of Leipzig in 2021, specializing in LC-MS analysis of oxidized complex lipids in projects related to ferroptosis. In April 2026, Palina defended her PhD in Bioanalytics at the Technical University of Dresden in the group of Prof. Maria Fedorova. Her doctoral work focused on building a pipeline for lipid metabolic tracing that combines click chemistry, LC-MS, and bioinformatics solutions.

Professor Pieter C. Dorrestein, is the Director, Collaborative Mass Spectrometry Innovation Center and Co-Director, Institute for Metabolomics Medicine. Working at the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences UCSD, Pieter uses mass spectrometry to eavesdrop on the molecular conversations between microbes and their world. The work aims to develop new mass spectrometry based methods to understand the chemistry of microbes, our microbiome and their ecological niche. In short, developing tools that translate the chemical language between cells. This research requires the understanding of (microbial) genomics, proteomics, imaging mass spectrometry, genome mining, enzymology, small molecules structure elucidation, bioactivity screening, antibiotic resistance and an understanding of small molecule structure elucidation methods.

Randall K. Julian, Jr., PhD, is founder and CEO of Indigo BioAutomation, which develops cloud computing and machine learning tools for mass spectrometry data analysis in diagnostic and hospital laboratories. With over 30 years of experience applying computational science to analytical chemistry, his current research focuses on using machine learning to solve complex analytical challenges. After completing his doctorate in analytical chemistry at Purdue University, he worked in Eli Lilly's Discovery Chemistry group before founding Indigo in 2006. Dr. Julian serves as an adjunct professor of chemistry at Purdue, mentoring students in analytical chemistry. He is the author of R Programming for Mass Spectrometry (Wiley 2025) and has taught R programming workshops at international laboratory medicine conferences.

Shane Ellis received his PhD in 2013 from the University of Wollongong, followed by a postdoctoral position at FOM-AMOLF in Amsterdam. In 2014, he joined the Maastricht MultiModal Molecular Imaging Institute (M4I) as an Assistant Professor, leading the instrument development group for mass spectrometry imaging. Key innovations from his group included isomer-resolved lipid imaging, parallelised MS/MS combined with MSI, and the first demonstration of MALDI-2 on Orbitrap systems. In 2020, he returned to the University of Wollongong as an ARC Future Fellow, and now holds a Mid-Career Industry Fellowship. His research continues to develop and advance next-generation MSI technologies and their application to spatial lipidomics, spatial metabolomics, and single-cell analysis.

Stefano earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemistry from the University of Perugia, where he also completed his Ph.D. in chemical sciences in 2023. A key aspect of his doctoral research focused on experimental and computational approaches for studying oxidized and nitrated lipids via LC-MS. Currently, he is a Lead Scientist at Mass Analytica, having previously served as a Field Application Scientist at Molecular Discovery, Ltd. His expertise lies in developing and optimizing computational workflows for LC-MS lipidomics, metabolomics, and small molecule analysis—spanning data processing, structure elucidation, quantification, and pathway-level interpretation.

Stephen Blanksby completed his PhD (1999, U. Adelaide) in the field of gas phase ion chemistry before undertaking postdoctoral research in Europe (1999, TU Berlin) and the USA (2000-2002, U. Colorado). He held a faculty position in the School of Chemistry at U. Wollongong (Wollongong, Australia, 2002-2013) before relocating to the Queensland University of Technology (Brisbane, Australia 2014-present) where he is currently Pro-Vice Chancellor (Research Infrastructure). Stephen’s research is focussed on putting the fun back into fundamental gas phase ion chemistry and developing new applications in analytical mass spectrometry with a focus on structural lipidomics. He is an enthusiastic advocate for mass spectrometry within the international community serving as associate editor of the International Journal of Mass Spectrometry and vice-President of the International Mass Spectrometry Foundation.

Dr. Yu Xia earned her B.S. (1999) from Lanzhou University, China, M.S. (2002) from Shanghai Institute of Material Medical, CASs, China, and Ph.D. (2006) from Purdue University, USA. After postdoctoral training at Purdue, Dr. Xia took positions as Assistant and Associate Professor at the Department of Chemistry, Purdue University (2009-2017). She joined Tsinghua University as a Professor of the Department of Chemistry in 2016. Her recent research emphasizes on developing mass spectrometric tools capable of resolving lipid structural isomers. Her work has resulted in over 140 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters. She currently serves as the Editor for the Journal of Mass Spectrometry and the Vice President of the International Lipidomics Society.

Zhixu Ni received his Ph.D. from the University of Leipzig (2017), followed by postdoctoral work at the University of Leipzig and TU Dresden in the group of Prof. Maria Fedorova (2017-2024). In 2025, he joined the Institute of Data and Information at Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School (SIGS) as an Assistant Professor. At Tsinghua SIGS, he aims to develop new methods, bridging analytical chemistry, bioinformatics, and AI for lipidomics research. Ni’s research mainly focused on computational lipidomics, including lipid structure identification, multi-omics integration, and AI applications to analyze lipid regulation in metabolic disorders. He is the developer of lipidomics tools such as LipidHunter, LPPtiger, and LipidLynxX, and assisted LIPID MAPS in creating PartialDB.