astronomy

Perdita Barran

Perdita Barran is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Perdita Barran rather than just read about it. In short: Perdita Elizabeth Barran is a Professor of Mass Spectrometry at the University of Manchester. She is Director of the Michael Barber Centre for Collaborative Mass Spectrometry.

Key takeaways

Perdita Barran belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Perdita Barran to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Perdita Barran from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Perdita Elizabeth Barran is a Professor of Mass Spectrometry at the University of Manchester. She is Director of the Michael Barber Centre for Collaborative Mass Spectrometry. She develops and applies ion-mobility spectrometry–mass spectrometry to the study of molecule structure and is searching for biomarkers for Parkinson's disease. She is Associate Dean for Research Facility Development at the University of Manchester. In 2020 and 2021 she was seconded to work for the Department of Health and Social Care as an advisor on the use case for mass spectrometry as a diagnostic method for diagnosis of COVID infection.

Education and early career Barran went to Godolphin and Latymer School. She moved to the University of Manchester to study chemistry, graduating in 1994. She joined the University of Sussex for her graduate studies, working with Harry Kroto and Tony Stace.

Research and career Barran stayed with Stace for three years after completing her PhD in 1998. In 2001 Barran joined the University of California, Santa Barbara, working as a postdoctoral fellow with Mike Bowers. She was interested in the structure and stability of small molecules in the gas phase. She looked at how Ion-mobility spectrometry could be used to identify conformation. Barran joined the University of Edinburgh as an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Advanced Research Fellow in 2002. In 2005 she was awarded the 10th Desty Memorial prize for her innovations in Separation Science. She was made a Senior Lecturer in 2009. She worked on mass spectrometry techniques that can be used to evaluate conformational change, aggregation and intrinsic conformation. She investigated mass spectrometry for therapeutics for pre-fibrillar aggregation. She helped to establish the Scottish Instrumentation and Resource Centre for Advanced Mass Spectrometry at the University of Edinburgh. This had an initial remit to provide proteomic analysis for the MRC Human Genetics Unit. In 2013 Barran was appointed to the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology as a Chair in Mass Spectrometry sponsored by Waters Corporation. She led an EPSRC platform grant to study the structure-activity relationships of Beta defensins. She works with Cait MacPhee, Garth Cooper and Tilo Kunath on neurodegenerative proteins, and with several groups including Richard Kriwacki, Rohit Pappu and Gary Daughdrill to examine intrinsically disordered proteins. She works with several biopharmaceutical companies to apply new mass spectrometry techniques to new drug modalities including monoclonal antibodies. She also develops new mass spectrometry instrumentation. Her group looks at the structure of biological systems at a molecular level, studying them in the gas and solution phase as well as theoretically. They use electrospray ionization, mass spectrometry, ion mobility mass spectrometry native mass spectrometry and complementary solution based biophysical techniques. They are interested in a proteins structure and how it changes in an effort to relate that to their function. Ion-mobility spectrometry–mass spectrometry can be used to look at the temperature dependent rotationally averaged collision cross-section of gas-phase ions of proteins. In 2014 she was awarded a Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council grant to study the interactions of proteins with other proteins. Barran serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Mass Spectrometry. She was included in the page of Perditas created by Perdita Stevens.

Parkinson's disease Barran has been working with Joy Milne to search for odorous biomarkers of Parkinson's disease. By smelling skin swabs, Milne says she can differentiate between people with and without Parkinson's disease. She says she identified changes in her husband's scent before he was formally diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, which he died of in 2015. Barran uses mass spectrometry to investigate the biomarkers of Parkinson's disease. The story was made into a BBC documentary The Woman Who Can Smell Parkinson's. Barran received ethical approval for her work of the skin metabolites of Parkinson's in 2015, allowing them to work with Parkinson's UK to conduct a larger study. In 2018 Milne travelled to the Tanzanian training centre APOPO to check whether she could smell Tuberculosis. Barran's work on Parkinson's is sponsored by The Michael J. Fox Foundation. In 2022, Barran and others published a study of a method to detect Parkinson's disease by analysing sebum using mass spectrometry.

Awards Barran was awarded the 2009 Joseph Black award, and the 2020 Theophillus Redwood Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry Analytical Division. Along with a team of researchers 'NosetoDiagnose' she won the Horizon Prize from the Royal Society of Chemistry 2021. She is ranked #3 in the "Human Health Heroes" field on the 2024 Analytical Scientist Power List.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Perdita Barran

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Perdita Barran claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Perdita Barran before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Perdita Barran ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Perdita Barran

In research: Perdita Barran appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Perdita Barran in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Perdita Barran is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 21st-century women scientists, Academics of the University of Edinburgh, Academics of the University of Manchester, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Perdita Barran outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Perdita Barran in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Perdita Barran means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Perdita Barran out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Perdita Barran in simple terms?

Perdita Elizabeth Barran is a Professor of Mass Spectrometry at the University of Manchester. She is Director of the Michael Barber Centre for Collaborative Mass Spectrometry.

Why does Perdita Barran matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Perdita Barran?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Perdita Barran.