Name Kevin Downard Role Scientist | ||
 | ||
Books Mass Spectrometry: A Foundation Course | ||
Kevin Downard is an Australian academic scientist whose research specialises in the field of mass spectrometry as it applies to molecular analysis in the life and medical sciences.
Contents
Downard has over 25 years of experience in the field, with over some 100 scientific publications, and has written two books on the subject: the first a textbook for the Royal Society of Chemistry published in 2004 that has received many positive reviews. His second book was the first to be published on the role of mass spectrometry in the study of protein interactions in 2007.
Early life and education
Downard received his B.Sc. and Ph.D. from the University of Adelaide.
Career
Downard held a post-doctoral fellowship from 1991 at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), working with Professor Klaus Biemann who pioneered protein sequencing by tandem mass spectrometry. He investigated subtleties of tandem mass spectra to help advance this application and was among the first to implement Electrospray ionization (ESI) on a four-sector mass spectrometer for high energy CID tandem mass spectrometry. He remained at MIT as the Assistant Director of the National Institutes of Health Mass Spectrometry Research Resource before establishing his own research laboratory to develop new mass spectrometry approaches with which to study protein structures and interactions to advance its application in functional proteomics.
His laboratory was to first to demonstrate the preservation and detection of large macromolecular complexes on conventional Matrix-assisted Laser Desorption Ionization (MALDI) targets (in 1999). The former has later been described as "intensity fading" MALDI by others.
He also co-developed radical probe mass spectrometry, based on protein footprinting experiments; and, in 2003, his laboratory was the first to apply it to the study of protein complexes. and has continued these research directions in addition to developing computer algorithms for studying protein structures and interactions using mass spectral data.
A current focus of his research is the development of proteotyping using mass spectrometry technology to type, subtype, determine the lineage and antigenicity of the influenza virus and other biopathogens.
Honours and other service
Downard has been recognised by the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) – the world's largest MS society. He has received four international fellowships in the past decade; two each from the Australian Academy of Sciences and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. He convened and chaired the Sir Mark Oliphant Conference on Proteomics in 2003 and the biennial mass spectrometry conference (ANZSMS22, 2009), and led and co-ordinated the first proteomics course at Sydney. He is also active in promoting the importance of mass spectrometry research and the history of mass spectrometry and its pioneers for which he received the Moran award from the Australian Academy of Science in 2006. His activities have been highlighted in scientific journals in the analytical sciences, scientific web resources, and in the media including interviews with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC Australia).
Downard has served on the Editorial Board of the European Journal of Mass Spectrometry (EJMS) and has acted as Guest Editor of Mass Spectrometry Reviews and other journals. He is frequently invited to speak at mass spectrometry conferences and those related to its application in proteomics, protein analysis, virology and vaccines, and infectious disease control. He has presented recent invited keynote lectures at the 18th International Mass Spectrometry Conference (IMSC) (Bremen, Germany 2009) of the International Mass Spectrometry Foundation, Vaccines Europe (Brussels, Belgium 2008), and the Fourth Annual Infectious Disease and Control (Sydney 2009).