Clarkson University chemistry Ph.D. student Emmalyn Dupree of Massena, along with another student, attended an American Society for Mass Spectrometry conference on peptidomics in January.

Dupree and Kelly Wormwood of Lowville, who are advised by Associate Professor Costel C. Darie, traveled to "Peptidomics: Bridging the Gap Between Proteomics and Metabolomics by Mass Spectrometry" last month in Clearwater, Fla.

“Peptidomics is the study of the dynamic peptide complement of a sample and includes the areas of peptide-based biomarker discovery, serum and biological fluid peptide measurements, and neuropeptide/brain peptide characterization,” according to a press release from Clarkson.

For example, neuropeptides modulate the functioning of every neuron in the brain, affect mood, and are the targets for drugs of abuse, but many cell-to-cell signaling peptides have yet to be characterized, the release said.

Organized by the Sanibel Conference Committee, the annual conference highlighted both the latest technology development and emerging applications in peptidomics, including wide-ranging topics from novel sampling strategies, chemical characterization and large-scale peptidome discovery, computational tools, to therapeutic approaches, spatial mapping, in vivo analysis and functional study of the intriguing signaling molecules, the release said.