Evening lecture by Dr. Frank Klont, organized by the Groningse Chemische Kring.

Drug metabolites and mass spectrometry

Summary
This lecture provides an overview of the research I have conducted in recent years in Geneva and Groningen in the field of innovations and new applications of the technique of pharmacometabolomics, as well as the development of the new research domain of real-world drug metabolism sciences. Using advanced LC-MS/MS techniques, drugs and their metabolites can be detected in ever-increasing numbers of samples, often without prior knowledge of the drug used. This approach makes it possible to gain insight into how drugs are actually metabolised and excreted in daily clinical practice. Finally, the lecture will not only address methodological developments but also applications in clinical and epidemiological studies.

About the speaker
Frank Klont graduated (cum laude) as a pharmacist from the University of Groningen in 2014. During his bachelor’s research, he investigated biomarker discovery using LC-MS/MS (under the supervision of Prof. Péter Horvatovich). For his master’s research, he focused on the quantification of endogenous steroids using LC-MS/MS (under the supervision of Prof. Ido Kema).
Frank then commenced his PhD research at the same university within Prof. Rainer Bischoff’s research group. In this research, he developed quantitative methods for promising protein biomarkers using MALDI-TOF-MS and LC-MS/MS. On 8 February 2019, Frank successfully defended his thesis (cum laude) entitled “Mass spectrometry-based methods for protein biomarker quantification: on the road to clinical implementation”.
Shortly afterwards, he moved to the University of Geneva in Switzerland, where he joined Prof. Gérard Hopfgartner’s research group. With the support of a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowship from the European Commission, he shifted his focus to small molecules and ‘omics’-type analyses, again using LC-MS/MS. During this period, he worked on, among other things, a new application of the so-called pharmacometabolomics technique, which ultimately enabled him to return to the University of Groningen.
Since March 2022, Frank has been back in Groningen as a tenure-track assistant professor in Personalised Pharmacotherapy. He works at both the Department of Pharmacotherapy, Epidemiology and Economics at the University of Groningen and the Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacology at the University Medical Centre Groningen. His research focuses on integrating knowledge of a drug’s profile with a patient’s clinical profile, including co-medication, genetic background and biomarker status, with the aim of contributing to the further personalisation of drug treatment.

Invitees are very welcome.

Please let us know in advance if you plan to attend.
Send an email to gck@kncv.nl or kommer.brunt@planet.nl.