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BioMS

Biomolecular Mass Spectrometry
and proteomics

Heck Lab

Albert Heck

Professor

Albert Heck’s group focuses on advancing biomolecular mass spectrometry and proteomics to study proteins, protein complexes, and their modifications in biological systems. By developing and applying cutting-edge MS technologies and analytical workflows, the group investigates protein structure, interactions, and dynamics in health and disease, enabling deeper insights into cellular mechanisms and supporting biomedical and pharmaceutical research.

Awarded Grants

There are currently no awards noted down.

Group News

  • Monomeric IgA (left) and J-coupled dimeric IgA (right)

    Structural promiscuity in the human circulatory IgA1 clonal repertoire

    May 19, 2026

    Immunoglobulin (Ig)A is one of the dominant antibody classes in our bodies. You would think that we know all about it by now, since antibodies have been studied for more than a century. Well, that is not true. Amber Rolland, postdoc in the lab, mapped the structure of IgA molecules in the blood in high […]

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  • Graphical abstract showing how DIA PTCR makes room for low abundant antibodies to be detected

    Extending Serum IgG1 Antibody Repertoire Coverage Using DIA-PTCR

    May 19, 2026

    At any given moment, your body is producing a vast, diverse army of proteins known as antibodies to actively defend your health. While these proteins make up a massive portion of the total protein content in your blood, they present a unique scientific puzzle. They exist in an immense diversity of highly similar variants to […]

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  • Albert J.R Heck is the recipient of the John B. Fenn Distinguished Contribution Award

    May 1, 2026

    Albert J.R Heck is the recipient of the John B. Fenn Distinguished Contribution Award, in recognition for his pioneering work in method development and applications of native mass spectrometry, especially for the study of the structure, function and assembly of very large macromolecular complexes, e.g. viruses and immune complexes. Read more on ASMS

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Group Members

Albert Bondt

Project coordinator
I was hired at the Biomolecular Mass Spectrometry and Proteomics group of Prof. Heck at Utrecht University in 2018 to take on one main task: visualize antibody repertoires by mass spectrometry. An impossible task according to me and my colleagues. But we managed! It started with IgG1 repertoires of sepsis patients. We followed this up by profiles of all kinds of other patients and healthy controls. And profiles beyond IgG1; so far we published on IgA1 and IgG4, and more will follow for sure. Personally, I love this combination of analytical and biological challenges, the fundamental and applied research questions.…

Amber Rolland

General Member

Awital Bar Barroeta

General Member

Elena Giaretta

General Member

Henk van den Toorn

General Member

Iuliia Stroganova

General Member

Joshua Maliepaard

General Member

Laura Perez Paneda

General Member

Linus Wollenweber

General Member

Luc Marée

General Member

Nadia Mokiem

General Member

Rien Leuvenink

General Member

Serena Furlan

General Member

Shelley Jager

General Member

Sofia Kalaidopoulou Nteak

General Member

Tereza Kadavá

General Member

2026

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Analyses of Individual Singly Charged Ions Using a High-Field Orbitrap Analyzer
Elena Giaretta, Evolène Deslignière, Eduard H.T.M. Ebberink, Tobias P. Wörner, Arjan Barendregt, Kyle L. Fort, Alexander Makarov, Albert J. R. Heck
Analytical Chemistry
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Extending Serum IgG1 Antibody Repertoire Coverage Using DIA-PTCR
Rien Leuvenink, Linus Wollenweber, Albert Bondt, Kyle L. Fort, Albert J. R. Heck
Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry
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A Prototype timsOmni Platform Enables Confident Annotation of the Key Hypervariable CDR3 Regions of IgG Immunoglobulins Using Low- and High-Energy Electron-Based Fragmentation
Simon Ollivier, Dina Schuster, D. Van Rijswijck, Iuliia Stroganova, Athanasios Smyrnakis, Jan Fiala, Mariangela Kosmopoulou, Detlev Suckau, Stuart Pengelley, Oliver Raether, Jean‐François Greisch, Dimitris Papanastasiou, Albert J. R. Heck
Analytical Chemistry
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The 2025 Westlake Autumn Symposium for Al Proteomics and Virtual Cell
Rui Sun, Ruedi Aebersold, Qi Xiao, Matthias Mann, Yan Zhou, Albert J. R. Heck, Yingrui Wang, Uwe Völker, Xue Cai, C. Boone, Zizhuo Zhou, Ming Li, Zhen Dong, Brenda Andrews, Shuaiyao Wang, Joseph Schacherer, Connie R. Jiménez, Bernd Wollscheid, Liang Yue, Ben C. Collins, Heng Jiang, Dong Wang, Liujia Qian, Jia-Xing Yue, Yingying Sun, Edouard C. Nice, Xiaofan Zhang, Yasset Perez-Riverol, A. S. Jun, Chris Sander, Henning Hermjakob, Wout Bittremieux, Wilson Goh Wen Bin, Ge Gao, Peijie Zhou, Siqi Sun, Han Wen, Ziyan Xu, Tiannan Guo
Genomics Proteomics & Bioinformatics
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Expanding Glycopeptide Identification with Match-Between-Glycans in FragPipe
Jiechen Shen, Daniel A. Polasky, Shelley Jager, Fengchao Yu, Albert J. R. Heck, Karli R. Reiding, Alexey I. Nesvizhskii
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
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Spectral Quality-Guided Optimization of Hybrid EAciD Fragmentation on the ZenoTOF 7600 System Enables Efficient Characterization of the Serum N -Glycoproteome
Shelley Jager, Tatiana M. Shamorkina, Sibylle Heidelberger, Patrick Pribil, Douwe Schulte, Karli R. Reiding, Albert J.R. Heck
Analytical Chemistry
AI‐driven antibody design from an antigen sequence
Pavel Sinitcyn, Albert J. R. Heck
Vita
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Structural domain plasticity drives Zn( ii ) distribution and buffering in metallothionein-3
Manuel David Peris‐Díaz, Eduard H.T.M. Ebberink, Jan Fiala, Albert J. R. Heck, Artur Krężel
Chemical Communications

2025

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Uncovering the link between ATP synthase and the TCA cycle by crosslinking mass spectrometry
Laura Pérez Pañeda, Jelena Misic, Tereza Kadavá, Nils‐Göran Larsson, Albert J. R. Heck
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)Preprint
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Widespread Fab-arm exchange affects all endogenous serum IgG4
Linus Wollenweber, Albert Bondt, Gestur Vidarsson, Maartje G. Huijbers, Albert J. R. Heck
Nature Communications
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The ferroform and glycoform landscape of human milk lactoferrin dissected through hybrid mass spectrometric approaches
Jing Zhu, Julia Bauzá‐Martinez, Joost W. Gouw, Xianfeng Zhao, Albert J. R. Heck, Bernd Stahl, Karli R. Reiding, Kelly A. Dingess
Frontiers in Nutrition
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Structural promiscuity in the human circulatory IgA1 clonal repertoire
Amber D. Rolland, Sofia Kalaidopoulou Nteak, Gestur Vidarsson, Albert Bondt, Albert J. R. Heck
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
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Immunoglobulin sub-class levels define inter-donor plasma variability: a longitudinal dual-lab study
Stephan Michalik, Sofia Kalaidopoulou Nteak, Nicolas Drouin, Manuela Gesell Salazar, Elke Hammer, Vishnu M. Dhople, Silva Holtfreter, Stefan Weiß, Henk van den Toorn, Barbara M. Bröker, Grażyna Domańska, Uwe Völker, Albert J. R. Heck
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)Preprint
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A Universal Spectrum Annotator for Complex Peptidoforms in Mass Spectrometry-Based Proteomics
Douwe Schulte, Rien Leuvenink, S. Jäger, Albert J. R. Heck, Joost Snijder
Analytical Chemistry
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Fucosylation limits ADCC in clinically used anti‐RhD monoclonal antibodies
Gabriela Koike, Albert Bondt, Douwe Schulte, Rien Leuvenink, Dirk Jan Mons, Peter C. Ligthart, E. J. T. Verweij, Albert J. R. Heck, C. Ellen van der Schoot, Gestur Vidarsson
Transfusion

View Albert Heck on ORCID →