Pick-up your badge on the conference level then head upstairs to the MSACL Hospitality Lounge for breakfast, Continental-style plus breakfast wraps and sandwiches. Touch base with other conference attendees who have arrived early, or just enjoy the trees, stream, fish and ducks outside on the patio prior to starting your day.
1430
1830
LC-MSMS 101 : Getting Started with Quantitative LC-MSMS in the Diagnostic Laboratory
Location: Montreal 1-2
Grace van der Gugten, B.Sc. Chemistry Provincial Health Services Authority, BCCDC Toxicology Lab
Grace discovered her love for clinical mass spectrometry when she began working at St Paul's Hospital in Vancouver in the special chemistry mass spec group with Dr. Dan Holmes in late 2010. Grace was challenged in this role but gained a wealth of knowledge and experience over her 10+ years in the SPH laboratory. She puts this experience and knowledge into use in her current role as Mass Spectrometry Lab Scientist in the Toxicology Lab at the BCCDC in Vancouver, BC. Grace loves developing streamlined, easy to use (if possible!) clinical mass spectrometry assays; teaching others and helping others succeed; and troubleshooting (especially when the problem is solved!).
Relevant Financial Disclosures
(within past 24 months, reported on Mar 05, 2026)
No relevant financial relationship(s) to disclose.
Deborah French, PhD, DABCC (CC, TC), FADLM UCSF
Deborah French Ph.D., DABCC (CC, TC), FADLM is a Director of Chemistry and the Director of Mass Spectrometry at the University of California San Francisco Health Clinical Laboratories. Her work currently focuses on the development and validation of LC-MS/MS assays for small molecules, specifically therapeutic drug monitoring, steroid hormones and toxicology. Deborah received her Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland and then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN. She subsequently completed a ComACC Clinical Chemistry postdoctoral fellowship under the direction of Dr Alan Wu at the University of California San Francisco and is now board certified in Clinical Chemistry and Toxicological Chemistry by the American Board of Clinical Chemistry.
Relevant Financial Disclosures
(within past 24 months, reported on Feb 27, 2026)
Consultant Fees
ARK Diagnostics, Roche Diagnostics (ended)
Grace Williams, PhD Virginia Commonwealth University
Relevant Financial Disclosures
(within past 24 months, reported on Mar 06, 2026)
No relevant financial relationship(s) to disclose.
1430
1830
LC-MSMS 302 : Advanced LC-MSMS Method Development, Troubleshooting and Operation for Clinical Analysis
Location: Montreal 6-8
Robert Voyksner, PhD LCMS Limited
Dr. Robert D. Voyksner received his B.S. in Chemistry at Canisius College in 1978 and his Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1982. He was employed at Research Triangle Institute (RTI) from 1983-2001 as the director of the mass spectrometry facility and has been responsible for developing
extraction, separation and mass spectrometric methods for biologically and environmentally significant compounds. His work earned him the Presidents Award, the highest award within RTI. In 2001 he co-founded LCMS Limited in Durham, NC and has been the CEO of the company to date. Under his direction LCMS Limited is working on technological advancements in LC-MS/MS, offering services to pharmaceutical, clinical and agrochemical industry for solving unique problems by LC/MS/MS and offering training in LC/MS/MS and MS/MS interpretation and on LC/MS/MS instrumentation. Dr Voyksner is also an Adjunct professor at the North Carolina a School of Veterinary Medicine and at The University of North Carolina
School of Pharmacy.
Dr. Voyksner's research in mass spectrometry has resulted in over 230 publications and presentations, primarily in the area of LC-MS/MS. He has served on the Board of Directors for The American Society For Mass Spectrometry (ASMS), is on the organization committee for The Montreux LC/MS Symposium and was the organizer for the 1995, 1999, 2003 and 2007 Montreux LC/MS Symposia. Dr. Voyksner has taught over 100 courses on LC-MSMS, CE/MS and CID interpretation during the past 10 years for MSACL, ASMS, pharmaceutical companies; ISSX, PBA, HPCE and HPLC focused meetings.
Relevant Financial Disclosures
(within past 24 months, reported on Jan 14, 2026)
Data Science 203 : Machine Learning : A Gentle Introduction
Location: Outremont 4
Stephen Master, MD, PhD, FADLM Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Stephen Master received his undergraduate degree in Molecular Biology from Princeton University, and subsequently obtained his MD and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. After residency in Clinical Pathology at Penn, he stayed on as a faculty member with a research focus in mass spectrometry-based proteomics as well as extensive course development experience in bioinformatics. After time as an Associate Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City, where he served as Director of the Central Lab and Chief of Clinical Chemistry Laboratory Services, he took a position at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia as Chief of Lab Medicine. One of his current interests is in the applications of bioinformatics and machine learning for the development of clinical laboratory assays. He would play with R for fun even if he weren't getting paid, but he would appreciate it if you didn't tell that to his department chair.
Relevant Financial Disclosures
(within past 24 months, reported on Feb 27, 2026)
Randy Julian is the Founder and CEO of Indigo BioAutomation. Randy earned a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Purdue University. Dr. Julian worked for 14 years at Eli Lilly using mass spectrometry in natural product drug discovery, high throughput screening for RNA anti-viral compounds, and proteomics and metabolomics in animal models. Randy founded Indigo as a spin-out of Lilly. Indigo develops software that uses machine learning techniques to automatically analyze data from laboratories world-wide. Indigo's technology also drives new stand-alone medical devices, bringing advanced data analysis to every level of the clinical lab. Dr. Julian is also is an Adjunct Professor of Chemistry at Purdue.
Relevant Financial Disclosures
(within past 24 months, reported on Feb 27, 2026)
Stock/Bonds
Indigo BioAutomation, Inc.
Salary
Indigo BioAutomation, Inc.
1430
1830
Data Science 101 : Breaking Up with Excel : An Introduction to the R Statistical Programming Language
Location: Outremont 5
Nicholas Spies, MD University of Utah, ARUP Laboratories
Nick Spies, MD, is a bioinformatician-turned-laboratorian who is a medical director in the Applied Artificial Intelligence group within ARUP laboratories' Division of Research and Innovation. He is focused on applying analytical techniques to improve the way we detect laboratory errors, and hopes to spread the good word of data science and machine learning within the laboratory medicine community.
Relevant Financial Disclosures
(within past 24 months, reported on Apr 30, 2026)
Not yet reported.
Daniel Holmes, MD, FRCPC St. Paul’s Hospital
Daniel Holmes did his undergraduate training in Chemistry and Physics at the University of Toronto before deciding to pursue medicine as a career. He attended medical school at the University of British Columbia where pathology became his area of major interest. The strong influence of his academic mentors led him to enter the Medical Biochemistry residency training program at UBC. This allowed him to use his background knowledge of chemistry in application to medicine. Areas of clinical interest are diagnostic lipidology/endocrinology and research interests are in the utilization of mathematics and computer diagnostics to laboratory medicine.
Relevant Financial Disclosures
(within past 24 months, reported on Feb 27, 2026)
Honorarium/Expenses
Novo Nordisk (ended)
1430
1830
Clinical Proteomics 202 : MS-based Precision Diagnostics by Molecular Protein Analysis
Location: Outremont 7
Renee Ruhaak, PhD LUMC
Renee Ruhaak holds a PhD from the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC, supervisor Prof. M. Wuhrer) and did a post-doc at UC Davis in the lab of Prof. C.B. Lebrilla prior to joining the department of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine at the LUMC. She is currently an associate professor with a research focus on the application of mass spectrometry within the clinical setting. This entails both development and implementation of quantitative protein mass spectrometry, as well as the role of mass spectrometry in metrology and test standardization.
Relevant Financial Disclosures
(within past 24 months, reported on Feb 27, 2026)
Grant/Research Support
Octapharma
1830
2200
Welcome Dinner
Location: Salon Ville-Marie, Hotel Level
Make your way upstairs to the MSACL Hospitality Lounge for an informal dinner. If you are arriving later because your course begins Monday morning, note that dinner will be served through 9:00pm, at the latest. Drinks (and maybe dessert) will be available through 10:00pm. The Lounge includes a pleasant outdoor patio along a stream and among some small trees and shrubbery, which may be enjoyable should we have nice weather. Open to all conference registrants.
