By merging chemical analytical expertise with cheminformatics tools, MALDI4Health provides for the first time:

• Innovative polymer- based MALDI matrices to overcome the existing challenges in LMWCs identification
• Combination of IMS with MALDI technology for the separation of LMWCs that was impossible so far, overcoming the main issue of isobaric matrix interferences
• Dedicated data evaluation workflows, addressing the complexity of multidimensional MALDI–HRMS data, allowing to fully exploit the enormous capabilities of modern instrumental analysis for the detection of large groups of small molecules
• Evaluation of the feasibility of the developed methodologies with a case study of zebrafish larvae exposed to xenobiotics.
• Biomarker discovery and molecular characterization of the induced toxicity, by regiospecific information from MALDI MSI combined with deep metabolomic, lipidomic and/or proteomic coverage and xenometabolome assessment.

MALDI4Health will increase the application domain of particularly targeted and un-targeted screening significantly beyond that of the established “conventional” methods, aiming to expand the identification range of compounds that have significant biological importance.