1.
How did you get involved in metabolomics?
I was fortunate to become a PhD student under the supervision of Dr Richard
Trethewey at the Max-Planck-Institute for Molecular Plant Physiology in Golm,
Germany. Richard was one of the pioneer team who thought of using GC-MS to
analyse hundreds of metabolites in plant tissues. My PhD thesis was to establish
and validate GC-MS methodologies for metabolite profiling in potato and to test
multivariate statistical analyses methods for data mining and visualisation.
Metabolomics as a new research tool was born combining comprehensive and
advanced analytical chemistry techniques based on mass spectrometry and NMR
with sophisticated computational and statistical methods.
2. What are some of the most exciting aspects of your work in
metabolomics?
Being part of a metabolomics service centre, the most exciting aspect is that I am
involved in so many different biological research areas allowing me to get insights in
many different questions, approaches and applications. The learning never ends
which is challenging on one side but also quite rewarding. Many clients and
collaborators come to us with their specific research questions and we are trying to
offer them new ways of looking at their problem using metabolomics.
3. What key metabolomics initiatives are you pursuing at your research
centre or institute? What is happening in your country in terms of
metabolomics?
I am now involved in two metabolomics based initiatives, one is to use the
technology in a large research program through the Australian Centre for Plant
Functional Genomics where we investigate abiotic stress responses and tolerances
in cereals such as wheat and barley aiming to identify new targets for breeding
strategies to develop novel crops with better yield sustainability in harsh
environmental conditions. Next to the research, we offer metabolomics technologies,
both analytically and computationally, to the research community through a federal
government funded national metabolomics research infrastructure facility,
Metabolomics Australia. This is one example of an exciting funding opportunities for
metabolomics in Australia through which the government funds large infrastructure
facilities enabling research to be accessed by academia and industry.
4. How do you see your work in metabolomics being applied today or in the
future?
I believe Metabolomics will become a routine analytical tool for any biochemical
analysis of biological systems just as Genomics has evolved as the first point of
investigation to answer basic biological questions. Metabolomics will also be applied
more and more for identification of early diagnostic parkers for disease and health
and in the future will be the major tool for monitoring disease treatments in
personalised medicine applications or for improving health through personalised
nutrition.
5.
As you see it, what are metabolomics’ greatest strengths?
That it is comprehensive. Biochemical analyses have been done for many decades
however metabolomics technologies offer to analyse more than just a handful of
metabolites. Although we still only know a low percentage of what we are able to
measure with respect to chemical nature; we soon will increase the number of
identifications in any analytical experiments definitely enriching the information
obtained from metabolomics experiments.
6. What do you see as the greatest barriers for metabolomics? What
improvements, technological or otherwise, need to take place for
metabolomics to really take off?
As mentioned above, we only can identify a low percentage of compounds in the
metabolite profiles which is a major bottleneck when it comes to biological
interpretation or validation of a potential biomarker. To really unlock the potential of
metabolomics in biology, nutrition and medicine, a large improvement in compound
identification needs to be made. This would require better libraries which are shared
on public forums. The usefulness of these libraries also will improve once many
laboratories use standardised methodologies across the globe.
7.
How does the future look in terms of funding for metabolomics?
In our region metabolomics has become an important budget item on grant
applications where researchers request appropriate funding for experimentations,
either in their own lab or through access to metabolomics service providers. The
systems biology or integrated biology approach will become routine for any project
aiming to increase our understanding of biological systems, health and complex
diseases in human, animal and plants. Funding agencies now understand better that
metabolomics is an essential tool for true systems biology and therefore funding will
become more readily available to apply the technology.
8. What role can metabolomics standards play?
Standards are playing a huge role. As mentioned above, in order to develop
comprehensive metabolomics libraries researchers will need to settle on common
and standardised methodologies which can be described in details through
standards. This will also allow better comparisons of metabolomics results between
laboratories, so well established standards and policies on minimal requirements to
describe any metabolomics experiment will lead to huge improvements of possible
interpretations within a biological context.
9. Do you have any other comments that you wish to share about
metabolomics?
I would like to emphasise how important it is for everyone starting to use or already
using metabolomics to make sure to be aware of all the pitfalls and analytical mystics
of dealing with extreme complex chemical mixtures. It is very easy to measure lots of
noise and background which can interfere and skew resulting data and lead to
misinterpretations. Any metabolomics experiment should be repeated a second time
from the beginning, not only analyse the samples again. If the identified significant
features/markers arise a second time, more conventional and rigorous validation
methods need to be employed before a result can be considered true.