Kevin Downard

Kevin Downard is an Australian academic and scientist whose research specializes in the field of mass spectrometry as it applies to molecular analysis in the life and medical sciences. He is an Associate Professor in the School of Molecular Bioscience and Director of the Molecular Biotechnology Program at the University of Sydney, Australia's first university, in Sydney, Australia.

Downard has over twenty years of experience in the field, with over 75 scientific publications, and has written two books on the subject: the first a textbook, Mass Spectrometry — A Foundation Course, for the Royal Society of Chemistry, published in 2004 which has received many positive reviews. His second book, Mass Spectrometry of Protein Interactions was the first to be published on the role of mass spectrometry in the study of protein interactions. It sold close to 6000 copies in the first 6 months of sales.

Downard is a graduate of the University of Adelaide and 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. He remained at MIT as the Assistant Director of the National Institutes of Health Mass Spectrometry Research Resource. He later held an academic faculty position in New York for four years where his research laboratory began to develop new mass spectrometry approaches with which to study protein structures and interactions in order to advance its application in functional proteomics. His laboratory was to first to demonstrate the preservation and detection of large macromolecular complexes on Matrix-assisted Laser Desorption Ionization (MALDI) targets (in 1999). 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. After returning to Australia, he 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.

Downard is the only Australian to be awarded by the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) — the world's largest MS society. 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. 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 serves on the Editorial Advisory 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, Australia 2009).

References

• Downard, K.M. (2004) "Mass Spectrometry — A Foundation Course", Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge UK
• Downard, K.M. (2007) "Mass Spectrometry of Protein Interactions", Wiley, New York USA
• Schwahn, A.B., Wong, J.W.H., Downard, K.M. (2009) Subtyping of the Influenza Virus by High Resolution Mass Spectrometry, Anal. Chem., 81: 3500–3506.
• Downard, K.M. (2006) Ions of the Interactome — The Role of Mass Spectrometry in the Study of Protein Interactions in Proteomics and Structural Biology, Proteomics, 6: 5374-5384.
• Morrissey, B., Downard, K.M. (2006) A Proteomics Approach to Survey the Antigenicity of the Influenza Virus by Mass Spectrometry, Proteomics, 6: 2034-2041.
• Downard, K.M., deLaeter J.R., (2005) A History of Mass Spectrometry in Australia, J. Mass Spectrom., 40: 1123-1139.

External Links

• Downard Laboratory at the University of Sydney
• School of Molecular Bioscience at the University of Sydney
• University of Sydney