Dr Morphy Dumlao

Morphy completed his PhD from the University of New South Wales (Sydney) in 2017. He was a recipient of the UNSW scholarship program with a top up funds from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons as Graduate Research Fellow. He is a member of mass spectrometry societies in Australia, Singapore and USA.

After his PhD, he was a Research Fellow at Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore in conjunction with Synthetic Biology for Clinical and Technological Innovation Centre.

Before UNSW, Morphy was a Police Chief Inspector of the Philippine National Police as a forensic chemist for more than 10 years. He continued with United Nations Directorate for Peacekeeping Operation as Forensic Expert and assigned in Sudan (2009) and Timor-Leste (2011). After UN, he received an OPCW Research Fellowship and spent at Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zürich with Prof Renato Zenobi focusing on developing plasma-based ionization mass spectrometry.

My research focused on integrating and synergizing nanoscience and nanotechnology in developing, understanding and characterizing MS ionization source for various applications e.g., agriculture, clinical, environmental, forensics, home security.

Specialization: Analytical chemistry and instrumentation

Focus area: portable ambient mass spectrometry and surface chemistry

Our project will develop in-field assessment of grape quality, composition and fungal taint compounds. The work builds upon our expertise for quantifying volatiles linked to grape fungal infection and will extend to volatiles linked to wine faults and taints.

Currently, the focus is on developing a rapid and direct method for the detection of volatile grape biomarkers using mass spectrometry. Firstly, a library of different adsorbent materials with ultrahigh surface areas that selectively capture our target compounds will be developed and characterized. Secondly, a new sampling and ionization source for mass spectrometry will be developed that enables analytes to be selectively and rapidly detected by integrating thermal desorption with ambient ionization for the first time. The performance of this library of thermal desorption materials and this ionization approach will be compared to that of commercially available materials (e.g., polymer Tenax) and instrumentation (i.e. gas chromatography mass spectrometry).