Prof. David Wishart from the University of Alberta, Canada visited the University of Missouri and Sumner lab as a Department Biochemistry Seminar Series speaker November 10, 2017.  He also provided an overview of the Human Metabolome Database and Tutorial on their software tool MetaboAnalyst on November 11, 2017.

Metabolomics for Precision Medicine

David S. Wishart, Professor, Depts. of Biological Sciences and Computing Science, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada

Simply stated, precision medicine is about providing the right diagnosis to the right patient and then giving the right drug at the right dose at the right time. In order to get all these things “right” it is essential to have precise methods to accurately diagnose and monitor patients. One of the best routes for doing this is by looking at the chemicals (or metabolites) found in patients using advanced analytical technologies such as mass spectrometry and NMR spectroscopy. In particular, metabolomics offers a remarkably quick and inexpensive route to measure an individual’s “molecular phenotype”. In this presentation I will provide a brief history of precision medicine and describe how metabolomics has become integral to the long-term vision for precision health. I will also provide some specific examples illustrating how metabolomics is already being used for a variety of precision medicine applications ranging from cancer screening to the prediction of diabetes. I will conclude this presentation by providing some examples of how metabolomics can be integrated with other “omics” techniques to provide even more precise medical information.