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
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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)