Region Europe

History

Previously: MSIS

The history of the Mass Spectrometry Imaging Society started in 2012.

A community of practice on mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) emerged 2012 under the auspices of the European network COST Action BM1104 which aimed at connecting scientist working in the rapidly growing field of MSI. The European nature of the COST funding has meant these early activities (conferences, workshops, training courses) had an European focus but they were open to worldwide participation. Consequently, the community had over 200 active members from all continents.

It was decided in October 2015 to formally establish a Mass Spectrometry Imaging Society to continue the activities of the COST network and to include other activities and all practitioners in the field of MS imaging. The possibility to join an existing society, e.g. to form a focus group within the International Mass Spectrometry Foundation (IMSF) was evaluated and discussed during 2016. As a result of extensive discussions during OurCon IV (Ustron, Poland, October 2016) it was almost unanimously decided to form the Mass Spectrometry Imaging Society, with the legal entity being in Switzerland. As a result, the society was founded on February 10, 2017 in Basel, Switzerland.

With the creation of the International Mass Spectrometry Imaging Society (IMSIS) in December 2023, MSIS became a full member of IMSIS as Region Europe.

Region Europe- Executive Committee

The executive committee oversees the activities of the Region Europe, and help in promoting workshop, initiative, educational event and with the organisation of the Internationl IMSIS conference when help in Europe.

Nicolas Desbenoit

President

CBMN, France

Dr. Nicolas Desbenoit joined the CNRS in 2017 as researcher. He is an analytical chemist specialized in mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) based on MALDI. His research focuses on methodological developments to investigate the distribution of any biomolecules (lipids, metabolites, drugs, peptides/proteins, etc.) within tissue sections applied to biomedical research. His current work with his collaborators and students, is focused on the development of the challenging multimodal imaging associating MALDI-MSI with other modalities including vibrational spectroscopies (infrared, Raman), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and immunohistochemistry.

Nina Ogrinc

President Elect

LUMC, Netherlands

Dr. Nina Ogrinc is a researcher at the Center for Proteomics and Metabolomics (CPM) at LUMC, working in the Mass Spectrometry Imaging (MSI) group. Her work focuses on understanding molecular interactions within tissues and their roles in disease, using MSI to map spatial molecular profiles and identify biomarkers such as lipids, metabolites, and proteins, with a strong emphasis on cancer and clinical translation.

She obtained her PhD from the University of Ljubljana and the Jožef Stefan Institute (2015), where she developed a novel SIMS probe for subcellular tissue analysis. She then joined Prof. Ron Heeren’s group at AMOLF/M4I as a postdoctoral researcher in the Marie Curie BRAINPATH project, applying multimodal MSI to investigate neurodegeneration and brain plasticity.

In 2018, she moved to Inserm U1192 (University of Lille), contributing to the SpiderMass project and developing one of the first prototypes for in vivo molecular MSI for real-time surgical guidance. Currently, at CPM, she integrates spatial multi-omics approaches to characterize disease phenotypes and translate biomarkers into applications ranging from diagnostics to therapy.

Shazia Khan

Treasurer

University of Edinburgh, UK

Shazia Khan is a Fellow at the Centre for Cardiovascular Science (CVS), Queen’s Medical Research Institute (QMRI), University of Edinburgh. She holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (PGCAP) and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), reflecting her commitment to excellence in teaching, mentoring, and academic leadership. She is a leading expert in Mass Spectrometry Imaging (MSI) within the Mass Spectrometry Core Group of Edinburgh Clinical Research Facility (CRF).

After completing her PhD in 2009 from H.E.J. Research Institute of Chemistry, University of Karachi, she served as an Assistant Professor at the COMSATS Institute, Lahore, until 2010. From 2011-2014, Shazia worked as a research assistant at Bioscience Department – Swansea University on fungal secondary metabolites analysis by GCMS and as a visiting scholar at Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences (SIPBS) on LCMS-based metabolomics profiling.

Currently, she is actively engaged in multiple collaborative research projects involving Mass Spectrometry Imaging (MSI) for the analysis of small molecules and lipids in various tissues and disease models including brain, kidney, liver, heart, skin etc. using MALDI and DESI on FT-ICR-MS and SYNAPT G2Si. Her research interest primarily revolved around Mass Spectrometry Imaging of tissues for both targeted and untargeted analysis as well as MSI and LCMS-based metabolomics and lipidomics for biomarkers discovery.

Learn more about the IMSIS Europe Executive Committee Members