SSPIN · Species and Sex by Proteome Investigation

Currently there is no broadly available strategy to perform large-scale sex and species identification on morphologically non-informative bone and tooth specimens from paleontological, palaeoanthropological and archaeological contexts. SSPIN aims to the creation of a service platform to democratise species and sex identification from these materials by developing and deploying a new high-resolution mass spectrometry-based approach. SSPIN will dramatically increase throughput at all levels of the workflow, i.e. sample preparation, data acquisition and data analysis, whilst simultaneously lowering the operator’s involvement. Automation will empower a service platform offering to the end-user access to the technology currently out of reach to all but a few specialised laboratories world-wide. Research projects that are simply unsustainable with the current solutions will move within reach on a global scale.