Career profile: Natalie Homer, Mass Spectrometry Core Manager

What is your job?

I am a mass spectrometry core facility manager and a senior research fellow at the University of Edinburgh.

So what is Mass spectrometry?

It is an analytical tool used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of one or more molecules in a sample. Often combined with separation tools such as chromatography, it can be used to discover biomarkers, to study drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics (the study of how the body interacts with administered substances for the entire duration of exposure), to measure proteins and in studies of toxicology (the study of the harmful effects chemicals, substances, or situations, can have on people, animals, and the environment). 

The mass spectrometry core facility I manage measures small molecules like steroid hormones, glucose and drugs.

And what is a core facility?

It is a collection of technologies run by a team of specialists who also train researchers to use the technology and answer research questions. 

We support approximately 30 different research studies every year and these can range from small studies of only 20 samples to large studies of 2000 samples or more. We handle different sample types like blood, urine and tissue in both pre-clinical (studies or trials before testing in humans), clinical (testing in humans) and veterinary studies. 

How did you become a Mass Spectrometry Core Manager?

I always enjoyed science at school and studied Biology, Chemistry and Maths for A-Level and chose Chemistry for my undergraduate degree. Immediately after my degree I studied towards a PhD. My PhD took three years, investigating oxidation and hormones. I learnt all about oestrogen and progesterone and the role that they play in the female reproductive cycle and my studies were to investigate the antioxidant effects of oestrogen. I learnt to centrifuge blood (a machine with a rapidly rotating container that uses centrifugal force to separate fluids of different densities) to measure levels of oxidation in red blood cells. To do this, I used three main analytical techniques; nuclear magnetic resonance to look at glutathione oxidation, scanning electron microscopy to look at the shape of the red blood cells and liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS) to look at oxidative damage to membrane lipids.

When I finished my PhD I started working in the Mass Spectrometry core of the Edinburgh Clinical Research Facility, measuring stable isotope tracers of steroids using gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS). After two years in that role I became the manager of the facility, where I was responsible for operating and maintaining an LC-MS and a GC-MS and developing methods to analyse steroid hormones in clinical research projects.

What do you do day-to-day? 

I manage a team of technical specialists to run the mass spectrometry facility. Our week begins discussing what we achieved last week - what results were generated, if certain studies have been completed, what didn’t go well and what new studies are coming in.  We will then timetable what we need to do in the lab – preparing chemicals, using a robot to extract samples, setting the mass spectrometer to analyse samples and data analysis amongst the team.

For some studies we may not have a suitable method in place and so will need to develop a brand new method.  All of the data is collected on specific software and we need to check often that the data being collected is good quality.

Mass Spectrometers and chromatography systems are expensive pieces of kit (>£300k each) and need to be carefully maintained. Chromatography systems can have blockages and leaks, while mass spectrometers need to be cleaned and calibrated. Sometimes we can’t fix problems and need to call for engineers to visit. This all needs careful management and good communication. 

I run the facility like a mini-business meaning we must recover the costs of the work we do, so I spend time calculating and raising charges to researchers. I have to manage the budget that covers the cost of staff salaries, purchase of consumables and the cost of maintenance of the mass spectrometers.

What qualifications and skills do you need for your job? 

A degree or qualification in a science would be useful, but not necessarily in biology. You would not need to have a PhD. Understanding chemistry helps in operating analytical scientific instrumentation and because mass spectrometry uses the mass of compounds for its measurements, then knowing the periodic table and molecular weights is the first hurdle.  As the amount of data we collect is increasing then an interest in computer software is useful because handling and carefully storing data is important.

For managing a core facility you need many other skills – communicating and working well within the team, with students, with other researchers, with colleagues who work within our chemical stores, with finance colleagues, with engineers to fix broken equipment and with sales representatives to buy new equipment. An understanding of business is key, e.g. marketing, finance, resource management and reporting. 

You must be happy to interact with lots of different people and manage the expectations of those people. So time-management and people skills like negotiation are both important. 

You must also be keen to keep learning – to bring in new technologies and to keep up with health & safety, ethics and other regulations.

Why did you want to become a Mass Spectrometry Core Manager?

I fell into this role more than seeking it. I knew that when I was doing my PhD that I was interested in the technologies I was using and had a great sense of satisfaction in being able to operate and develop mass spectrometry methods that worked. I particularly loved applying what I had learnt in science lessons and lectures to the lab – developing new chromatographic methods that worked. Beyond that I enjoy being part of a team that is asking really interesting research questions that have an impact on society like studies into obesity and diabetes, reproductive health and developing treatments for pancreatitis.  Using cortisol as a marker for stress, I have also contributed to studies looking at animal welfare and ecology studies into humpback whales.

What do you love about your job? 

I like the variety of different projects that I have been involved in. Interacting with different people – from clinical researchers, biological researchers, technical managers, other facility managers, study coordinators, buildings and estates staff, procurement staff, PhD, MSc to undergraduate students.

Training and supervising students in practical skills of sample extraction, chromatography and mass spectrometry is a great part of the job. I enjoy being able to share my knowledge and experience with students.

I like the challenge of fixing instruments when they aren’t working, developing novel methods, handling increasingly larger and more complex projects, finding out new ways to handle data, and integrating new technologies into the facility for researchers to benefit from.

I like being an expert in mass spectrometry and chromatography and particularly enjoy applying that expertise to measuring steroids in different sample types. 

I also enjoy seeing my team succeeding in their jobs – developing new methods, bringing in new technologies, gaining professional registration, training and supervising students.

What do you find difficult about your job?

Managing expectations – our mass spectrometers seem to have their own minds and sometimes they stop working at just the wrong time, which means it takes longer for the results to be brought together for a project.  As a team we do as much as we can to analyse samples quickly, but sometimes things conspire against us.

There is a high demand for mass spectrometry analysis and fitting in work, particularly with competing projects and I need to prioritise on lots of things, including availability of the team, working instruments and planning maintenance visits. It’s difficult to prioritise different projects when there are many factors to be accounted for.

The amount of samples analysed leads to a lot of data to be evaluated and brought together for reporting. As methods become capable of measuring more small molecules reliably, then we need to put in processes and methods to check the data and be confident that the data is well handled and that results are correct, which is often quite challenging..

What advice would you give someone interested in becoming a Mass Spectrometry Core Manager?

If you are interested in working within a core facility as a technician, specialist or manager of the facility, then you will want to have a good grounding or interest in science and gain experience working with an area of technology – both with the hardware and the software. You will want to find out how that technology can be used to answer questions in research, within mass spectrometry, flow cytometry or microscopy and imaging. There are many technologies that you could manage within a facility.

How might your job change in the future?

Scientific research is increasingly dependent on technologies to advance.  New technologies are being developed all the time. For example, with the introduction of automation we have seen changes in how many samples facilities are capable of handling. I need to ensure we have state of the art instrumentation in the laboratory and so I must future scope and keep on top of these advances by reading literature, attending conferences and meeting with manufacturers of analytical instrumentation. In the 20 years that I have been in this job, the landscape has changed dramatically.  

There remains a demand for mass spectrometry in clinical and biological studies. The number of samples we used to handle and analyse in a week when I first started was tiny (40) compared to what we can manage nowadays (>400). With automated sample preparation, automation of injections and preparation of samples from individual vials to 96-well plates, all of these changes mean we can do so much more in a shorter time. The challenges that we see nowadays relate to automation and our reliance on that technology along with the data produced and how best to handle that larger and more complex data. 

Where can I find out more? 

We have a website for the Mass Spectrometry Core Facility in Edinburgh and a video that introduces you to one of our instruments as part of Masses for the Masses. If you want to find out more about what Mass Spectrometry can do we also have 5 other facilities across University of Edinburgh that carry out mass spectrometry under a collective TEAM. There are a range of other different places to find out more about mass spectrometry, chromatography and its applications (British Mass Spectrometry Society, ChromAcademy, Scottish Metabolomics Network) and working within core facilities (Core Technologies for Life Sciences, Technical Specialist Network and Technical Managers at University).