The algorithms for protein identification and quantitation have played a central role in David Tabb’s career.  His publications over the last twenty years have ranged from large-scale data integration to signal processing to various methods for MS/MS identification.  An early brush with the LIPID MAPS consortium through his friend H. Alex Brown has ensured that phospholipid identification would be prominent in his thoughts as well.  

In 2015, Dr. Tabb produced a short workshop in metabolome informatics (now on YouTube) to explain the operation of XCMS and other essential tools for chromatogram-based assessment of lipids. In 2016, the Tabb Laboratory published the “Greazy” algorithm for phospholipid identification, seeking to adapt peptide-spectrum matching algorithms from proteomics to the various fragmentation models required for predicting tandem mass spectra of phospholipids.  

In late 2015, Dr. Tabb moved to Cape Town, South Africa, where he has continued his research program in biological mass spectrometry and has broadened his teaching activities to range over a wide array of topics from bioinformatics and biostatistics.