Dr. Andrea DeBarber was awarded a PhD in Chemistry in 1997 and subsequent Postdoctoral Fellowships at the NIH and OHSU that further solidified her knowledge of synthetic and bioanalytical chemistry. Since 2004, she has served as OHSU’s Associate Director of the Bioanalytical Shared Resource Facility. Her responsibilities include, in collaboration with OHSU clinicians and researchers, development of LC-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) methods for quantification of drugs and metabolite identification, as well as the analysis of endogenous steroids, sterols, lipids and thyroid hormone analogues. In 2008 she was appointed director of a high resolution MS facility at Portland State University. Although her training is as a basic scientist, due to her Bioanalytical Shared Resource Facility role, she has had the opportunity to work the last four-five years on patient-oriented research projects.

Through an NIH Training fellowships awarded in 2010 and 2011 she enrolled in the OHSU Master in Clinical Research program and obtain advanced translational and clinical research training. As an analytical chemist with such training, she is able to successfully meet the challenge of integrating highly specialized and continuously evolving analytical methodology with biomedical research, and to devote her expertise, curiosity and time to this field. Foundation grants from the Friends of Doernbecher Foundation located in Portland, Oregon and the United Leukodystrophy Foundation located in DeKalb, Illinois have allowed her to begin developing an independent research program where the focus of research has been using site-specific derivatization chemistries coupled with LC-MS/MS to provide improved diagnostic and newborn screening tests for rare genetic disorders of sterol and bile acid synthesis.