David L. Tabb

Since completing his PhD in 2003, Professor Tabb has invested considerable effort in proteomics technology assessment, bioinformatics, and biostatistics education, quality control for mass spectrometry, and non-model organism biology.

He has authored approximately 140 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. Since 2015, Prof. Tabb has become a globetrotter, first spending five years in South Africa at Stellenbosch University and currently spending two years in France.

A key principle that has animated Prof. Tabb’s career is the conviction that researchers must understand the fundamental algorithms of the software they use for their research data. The algorithms that proteomics researchers use to identify tandem mass spectra to peptide and proteoform sequences are the most common topic for his teaching. During 2022, he will teach short courses on this subject for the American Society of Mass Spectrometry conference, the International Mass Spectrometry Conference, and the Human Proteomics Organization World Congress.

With a strong background in detecting post-translational modifications and a fascination with protein structure models, Prof. Tabb is excited about the possibilities of HRPF. His experience of proteogenomics has sought to understand the perturbation of protein structures resulting from replacing one amino acid with another. HRPF is a promising lens to examine structure via mass spectrometry.