Prospectus

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Capillary Electrophoresis-Mass Spectrometry for Metabolomics

Course
2022-2023

Admission requirements

Master students BPS. The course is also open to third-year BPS students and to other MSc students with a basic background in analytical chemistry or separation sciences.

Description

The main objective of this course is to provide you with an overview of the main capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry (CE-MS) approaches used for metabolomics, including their working/separation mechanisms.
The course will be composed of both lectures and a grant writing assignment. Lectures are focused on capillary electrophoresis separation modes, electrospray ionization mass spectrometry, interfacing techniques for coupling CE to MS, comparison of this approach with other analytical techniques and (volume-restricted) metabolomics applications.
Apart from (following) lectures, you will work individually on writing a research grant proposal using the criteria as set out for constructing a Veni research proposal for the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). The scientific approach should be at least contain capillary electrophoresis as one of the approaches. You are totally free to come up with a challenging and innovative biological/clinical question or application. For the effective design of such a research proposal, a proper background in the basics of CE-MS is required.

Course objectives

At the end of this course the student is able to:

  • give an introduction into the basics of capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry (CE-MS)

  • explain the concept of metabolomics and how to set-up a CE-MS-based analytical workflow to address a biological question

  • discuss the strengths and limitations of CE-MS for metabolomics studies

  • design a Veni grant proposal, in which CE(-MS) plays a key role, according to NWO guidelines

Timetable

You will find the timetables for all courses and degree programmes of Leiden University in the tool MyTimetable (login). Any teaching activities that you have sucessfully registered for in MyStudyMap will automatically be displayed in MyTimeTable. Any timetables that you add manually, will be saved and automatically displayed the next time you sign in.

MyTimetable allows you to integrate your timetable with your calendar apps such as Outlook, Google Calendar, Apple Calendar and other calendar apps on your smartphone. Any timetable changes will be automatically synced with your calendar. If you wish, you can also receive an email notification of the change. You can turn notifications on in ‘Settings’ (after login).

For more information, watch the video or go the the 'help-page' in MyTimetable. Please note: Joint Degree students Leiden/Delft have to merge their two different timetables into one. This video explains how to do this.

Mode of instruction

Lectures, tutorials and self-tuition.

Assessment method

The assessment is based on the scientific quality of your research proposal (70% of final grade) and of your presentation of the research proposal (30% of final grade).
For each component, the grade should be ≥ 5.0, and the final/average grade should be ≥ 5.5 to successfully complete this course.

Reading list

The following book is recommended for this course: Capillary Electrophoresis-Mass Spectrometry for Metabolomics by Rawi Ramautar, ISBN: 9781788012737, publisher: The Royal Society of Chemistry (http://pubs.rsc.org/bookshop/search?searchtext=ramautar)

Registration

From the academic year 2022-2023 on every student has to register for courses with the new enrollment tool MyStudyMap. There are two registration periods per year: registration for the fall semester opens in July and registration for the spring semester opens in December. Please see this page for more information.

Please note that it is compulsory to both preregister and confirm your participation for every exam and retake. Not being registered for a course means that you are not allowed to participate in the final exam of the course. Confirming your exam participation is possible until ten days before the exam.

Extensive FAQ's on MyStudymap can be found here.

Contact

Coordinator: Dr. Rawi Ramautar (r.ramautar@lacdr.leidenuniv.nl), Associate Professor and PI of Biomedical Microscale Analytics

Remarks

A minimum of 5 and a maximum of 24 participants applies to this course. Placement is based on the registration date.
The lectures will be given in hybrid format, i.e. online and on-campus. A specific MS Teams will be made for this course.

This information is without prejudice. Alterations can be made for next year.