The CAI facility for NMR-based metabolomics: modern metabolic research spanning clinical science, classical biology and systems biology.
Presented by: Dr. Horst Joachim Schirra, Honorary Research Fellow, Centre for Advanced Imaging, The University of Queensland (UQ), Brisbane, Australia
Metabolomics is a dynamic and emerging research field, and highly complementary to proteomics, transcriptomics and genomics in enabling the global understanding of biological systems and biological processes. NMR-based metabolomics enables the analysis of metabolites in a biological organism and how they change in response to external and internal stimuli. It is a powerful tool for modern metabolic research and systems biology. Thus, metabolomics is an ideal platform technology for investigating the biological ramifications of disease, environmental change, and other fundamental physiological processes.
Against this background, the Centre for Advanced Imaging recently launched the UQ facility for NMR-based metabolomics (https://cai.centre.uq.edu.au/nmr-based-metabolomics). It provides a high-end, integrated metabolomics NMR data acquisition and analysis facility to enhance collaborative biomedical and biological research programs within the University and industry sectors.
This talk will:
(1) provide an introduction into NMR-based metabolomics and systems biology;
(2) outline the facilities for NMR-based metabolomics available at UQ’s Centre for Advanced Imaging;
(3) show several applications of NMR-based metabolomics in systems biology, clinical, and environmental science;
(4) briefly outline the future directions for NMR-based metabolomics, including personalised medicine, integration with other -omics technologies, metabolic modelling, and connections to structural biology, in order to create a systems biology approach to solve fundamental problems in biology and medicine.
Short Biography:
Dr Schirra is one of the leaders of NMR-based metabolomics in Australia. He studied Chemistry in Frankfurt, Germany, and received his PhD in Biochemistry from the ETH Zurich, Switzerland. In 1999, he joined UQ, where he was awarded an ARC Postdoctoral Fellowship and a Queensland Smart State Fellowship. In 2009, Dr Schirra became Lecturer in SCMB, and in 2012 he joined UQ's Centre for Advanced Imaging, where he leads a multidisciplinary research program in Metabolic Systems Biology and administers CAI’s newly established facility for NMR-based metabolomics. Dr Schirra uses metabolomics to investigate the basic principles of metabolic regulation and the role they play in fundamental biological processes, environmental change, and in the development of disease. Dr Schirra is a Director of the Metabolomics Society, Board Member of the Australian and New Zealand Society for Magnetic Resonance, committee member of the Australian and New Zealand Metabolomics Network. He was Co-chair of the 13th International Conference of the Metabolomics Society in Brisbane 2017. He is editorial board member of the journal Metabolites and regional editor of Current Metabolomics.
>For more information about Dr Schirra plesae see here.
