Focus on Bioinformatics, Software, and MS-Based “Omics,” Honoring Dr. Michael J. MacCoss, Recipient of the 2015 ASMS Biemann Medal

Journal of The American Society for Mass Spectrometry, Sep 2016

Joseph A. Loo, Dwight E. Matthews, John R. Yates

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Focus on Bioinformatics, Software, and MS-Based “Omics,” Honoring Dr. Michael J. MacCoss, Recipient of the 2015 ASMS Biemann Medal

J. Am. Soc. Mass Spectrom. Focus on Bioinformatics, Software, and MS-Based BOmics,^ Honoring Dr. Michael J. MacCoss, Recipient of the 2015 ASMS Biemann Medal 0 Dwight Matthews (University of Vermont, UVM): Mike comes from a science family , with his father Malcolm MacCoss 1 Dwight E. Matthews Department of Chemistry and Department of Medicine, The University of Vermont Burlington , VT , USA 2 Joseph A. Loo Editor-in-Chief, JASMS Department of Biological Chemistry, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California-Los Angeles Los Angeles , CA , USA - Dr. MacCoss has also substantially advanced the area of data-independent (DIA) MS analyses by developing a multiplexed strategy to better isolate noise and improve signal detection and, therefore, sensitivity through observational coherence [3]. One of the most recent projects championed by Dr. MacCoss is a cloud-based application to provide a costeffective mechanism for labs to backup, share, visualize, and analyze data on the cloud called The Chorus Project (http:// chorusproject.org). They are working with developers in academic labs and companies to offer tools to our community that can process mass spectrometry data stored within Chorus. The hope is to provide a platform where all labs have access to the latest analysis tools, and published data can be easily reanalyzed. To provide a perspective of what drives Mike and how he developed as a scientist, his Ph.D. and postdoc mentors, Dwight Matthews and John Yates, respectively, offered the following commentary on their personal experiences with Mike during his early career. being a Ph.D. organic chemist from the UK (University of Birmingham) who originally had worked in Alberta, Canada where Mike was born. He then moved to Chicago to work at Argonne National Lab, before moving to Merck (New Jersey) and rising up through the ranks to Vice President of Basic Chemistry and Drug Discovery Sciences, and the Deputy Site-Head of the MerckRahway Site; later he was appointed Group Vice President for Chemical Research at the Schering-Plough Research Institute. In summers in college, Mike interned at Merck, first with Pat Griffin, and later with Nathan Yates doing early proteomics research. Mike was focused on getting a Ph.D. with the other BYates^: John Yates, then at the University of Washington, but he was not accepted as a graduate student because of his mediocre undergraduate grades. Why? Because Mike spent most of his time hiking, climbing, back country skiing, and snowshoeing, and he was president of the UVM Outing Club. Mike somehow got word that I was leaving Cornell Medical College (New York City) to assume a new position here at UVM as Professor of Medicine, with a joint appointment in Chemistry, meaning that I could take graduate students. Mike wrote to me several emails in late May–early June 1996, and he was signed on as a new graduate student for Fall 1996. However, Chemistry has a rule that it won't accept any of its own undergraduate students as graduate students, but an exception was made because I was from the outside and primarily in Medicine. Mike was admitted as a graduate student, but only as an M.S.-level student, which we got changed after a year or so to a Ph.D. track. Mike was an exceptional student who was on equal footing with my two new postdocs in 1996, and we had a great time together, both working hard together in the lab and playing hard outside in the mountains skiing, although Mike spent much more time outside luring my postdocs out with him. He and one postdoc and another graduate student climbed to the top of every peak in the New Hampshire Presidential Range of the White Mountains in less than 24 h (they are set quite far apart, so it’s a lot of hiking), and they did it in winter, but over a couple of days; the Presidential Range includes Mt. Washington that has notoriously bad weather all year round, but it can be a killer in the winter (e.g., 231 mph winds have been recorded there). Mike was gifted, but he did not want to spend the time I thought he needed to think through details, planning and organizing experiments, and then his results. We had heated words at times over my red marks on his manuscript drafts, with him stomping away and muttering something about "what does it matter anyway" when I would point out his writing was neither precise nor clear enough. I believe he compliments me on giving him this grounding in thinking. While Mike was a graduate student, his sister Rachel, who later received a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Cambridge (UK), came to UVM as an undergraduate biology student. I recruited her over to be a chemistry major, and she also worked in my laboratory doing undergraduate research, with her big brother Mike assigned to be her mentor. Mike was never excited about the hoops the Chemistry graduate program makes you jump through and would grumble about them. One requirement was to prepare and write a grant pr (...truncated)


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Joseph A. Loo, Dwight E. Matthews, John R. Yates. Focus on Bioinformatics, Software, and MS-Based “Omics,” Honoring Dr. Michael J. MacCoss, Recipient of the 2015 ASMS Biemann Medal, Journal of The American Society for Mass Spectrometry, 2016, pp. 1715-1718, Volume 27, Issue 11, DOI: 10.1007/s13361-016-1502-1