MEMBER INFORMATION
Catherine graduated with a bachelor’s in Liberal Arts and Sciences from the Maastricht Science Programme (Maastricht University) in 2018, with a specialisation in Chemistry. After this, she enrolled in the joint Chemistry master’s programme at the Universiteit van Amsterdam and the Vrije Universiteit, specialising in Analytical Sciences. Through TI-COAST, she performed her master’s thesis research at Shell Technology Centre, Amsterdam, where she helped to establish the use of SFC-MS as an analysis method. Catherine joined the S2MB (Mass Spectrometry of Biological Macromolecules) team of the UMR CNRS 5248 Institute of Chemistry & Biology of Membranes & Nano-objects to perform her PhD under the supervision of Professor Caroline Tokarski. She will work within the Marie Skłodowska-Curie European Training Network PUSHH and will focus on the use of mass spectrometry applied to the field of palaeoproteomics.
ABM CONFERENCES
Poster Presenter
Reaching trace level protein detection to study archaeological artefacts and museum objects: new proteomics methods based on high resolution mass spectrometry
ABM MEMBER EVENTS
Seminar Series Presenter
Minimally invasive proteomics analysis: Application to museum objects made of ivory and bone
PUBLICATIONS + PROJECTS
Catherine Gilbert, Vaclav Krupicka, Francesca Galluzi, Aleksandra Popowich, Stéphane Claverol, Julie Arslanoglu, Caroline Tokarski
Species identification of ivory and bone museum objects using minimally invasive proteomics
Ivory is a highly prized material in many cultures since it can be carved into intricate designs and have a highly polished surface. Due to its popularity, the animals from which ivory can be sourced are under threat of extinction. Identification of ivory species is not only important for CITES compliance, it can also provide information about the context in which a work was created. Here, we have developed a minimally invasive workflow to remove minimal amounts of material from precious objects and, using high-resolution mass spectrometry–based proteomics, identified the taxonomy of ivory and bone objects from The Metropolitan Museum of Art collection dating from as early as 4000 B.C. We built a proteomic database of underrepresented species based on exemplars from the American Museum of Natural History, and proposed alternative data analysis workflows for samples containing inconsistently preserved organic material. This application demonstrates extensive ivory species identification using proteomics to unlock sequence uncertainties, e.g., Leu/Ile discrimination.