Yinon Prize announcement

January 10, 2016

The 2016, Israel Analytical Chemistry, ICAS - Jehuda Yinon Award

The selection committee and the Israel Analytical Chemistry Society are delighted to announce that Dr. Avi Weissberg, of the Israel Institute for Biological Research, is the year 2016 recipients of the Jehuda Yinon Award for an outstanding research in Analytical Chemistry. The award was given for his research on differentiation and identification of similar structures, including structural isomers of drugs, drugs of abuse and poisons, based on multistage MS3 experiments combined with in-house ESI(+)-MS-MS fragmentation rules Dr. Weissberg is a researcher in the analytical chemistry department of the Biological institute in Ness Ziona, Israel.

The Jehuda Yinon award was endowed by the family of Professor Jehuda Yinon, an analytical chemistry pioneer and world leader in forensic science. The Yinon award is given annually by the Israel Analytical Chemistry Society to outstanding young scientist for research in analytical chemistry.

At an early stage of Dr. Weissberg research, a systematic investigation of ESI(+)MS-MS dissociation pathways of over 1000 spectra of small organic compounds, containing more than 30 chemical functional groups, was carried out. He derived basic fragmentation channels and established a comprehensive set of ESI(+)-MS-MS fragmentation rules and utilized, for the first time, the ESI(+)-MS-MS fragmentation rules database to interpret most observed ions.

He demonstrated, for the first time, a new approach to achieve ’V’ type isomers differentiation and identification. The method incorporated MS/MS scan experiments combined with MS3. The MS3 experiments allowed the enhancement of the selectivity for the low abundance ions observed in the MS2 spectrum, provided spectra indicative of the different phosphonate groups. The MS3 study allowed to establish common fragmentation pattern, the formulation of mechanistic rules and the determination of sets of ions typical of specific groups.

A new analytical approach to achieve structural identification of benzimidazoles, where most of the MS3-based ions could not be supported by ESI-QTOF-MS2 exact mass measurements, was developed. Confirmation of the identity via fragmentation pattern matching to a structural analogue was demonstrated, for the first time.

The selection committee noted the novel scientific approach, the high quality of the research, and the potential importance of the research findings for the analysis of various important classes of compounds.

The award will be officially presented to Dr. Avi Weissberg on January 19th, 2016 during Isranalytica 2016, the official conference of the Israel Analytical Chemistry Society.

Signed by members of the selection committee:

Dr. Shmuel Zitrin (Chairman)

Adv. Moshe Yinon (Family representative)