With $6M Grant, UC San Diego Bioengineers Take On Key Role in New NIH Common Funds Metabolomics Program

With a $6 million grant over five years, bioengineers from the University of California, San Diego will play a central role in a new program from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to accelerate "metabolomics", an emerging field of biomedical research that offers a path to a wealth of information about a person’s nutrition, infection, health, disease status and more. In addition to powerful tools for diagnosis and disease follow-up, metabolomics technologies will transform researchers’ ability to define the mechanisms underlying disease, such as diabetes and obesity, and to develop new strategies for treatment.

Metabolomics is the study of small molecules called metabolites, found within cells and biological systems. Metabolites are produced or consumed in the chemical reactions that take place in the body to sustain life. The sum of all metabolites at any given moment — the metabolome — is a form of chemical readout of the state of health of the cell or body. One of the expected outcomes of this project is the ability to "metabo-type" individuals in order to get a detailed picture of their current metabolite profile, and recognize problems such as insulin resistance at an early stage. The effects of interventions such as changes in diet and exercise as well as pharmaceuticals could then be seen in updated metabo-type readings.

Shankar Subramaniam, professor and chair of the Department of Bioengineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering leads the metabolomics effort at UC San Diego, which involves coordinating the research cores and running the metabolome project’s Data Repository and Coordination Center (DRCC).

"I’m very excited about the prospect of collaborating with researchers in the Jacobs School, the School of Medicine, the San Diego Supercomputer Center and others across the campus and the country," said Subramaniam. "This work will lead to a systems level understanding of human physiology at the molecular level," said Subramaniam, who is the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Professor of Bioengineering and Systems Biology at UC San Diego.  Subramaniam is also an Associate Director of the UC San Diego Institute of Engineering in Medicine.

The metabolomics project will provide insights into the millions of microorganisms living within us. The human body contains many more bacterial cells than human cells, and this metabolome project will provide new opportunities for researchers to understand the role that microorganisms living within the body play in human health, Subramaniam explained.

Through the data repository, the bioengineers and other researchers at UC San Diego will organize and present all data from the three metabolome core centers across the country, as well as other metabolomics efforts. The DRCC functions as a coordinating hub so that the awardees can function as a consortium. Subramaniam has extensive experience in integration of "omics" data and has experience coordinating other large scale projects. The data repository will be housed at the San Diego Supercomputer Center at UC San Diego, directed by Michael Norman.

This metabolomics project at UC San Diego is an extension of the successful Lipid Maps project. Lipids are just one metabolite, and the metabolomics work will extend researchers view beyond this metabolite to others, such as sugars, nucleic acids, amino acids and hormones.

Funding to UC San Diego for this project is $6 million over five years, part of a total investment by the NIH of $51.4 for the metabolomics project. The awards are supported by the NIH Common Fund.

NIH announces new program in metabolomics

Awards given to support research centers in an emerging field of research

The National Institutes of Health will invest $14.3 million this year, potentially investing more than $51.4 million over five years, to accelerate an emerging field of biomedical research known as metabolomics. Metabolomics is the study of small molecules called metabolites, found within cells and biological systems. Metabolites are produced or consumed in the chemical reactions that take place in the body to sustain life. The awards are supported by the NIH Common Fund.

The sum of all metabolites at any given moment — the metabolome — is a form of chemical readout of the state of health of the cell or body, and provides a wealth of information about nutrition, infection, health, and disease status. Metabolomics technologies have the potential to measure hundreds to thousands of unique metabolites, which can change as the result of disease, environmental exposures, or nutrition. In a clinical setting, metabolomics technologies can be powerful tools for diagnosis and disease follow-up. In basic research, these technologies will transform the ability of investigators to define the mechanisms underlying disease and to develop new strategies for treatment.

The NIH Common Fund is taking a comprehensive approach to increasing the research capacity in metabolomics by funding a variety of initiatives in this area, including training, technology development, standards synthesis, and data sharing capability for this new field.

"We are excited about the potential advances in technology that will enable metabolomics analysis to be conducted in basic and clinical settings, resulting in the discovery of new diagnostic tools and yielding important clues about disease mechanisms. The new cross-cutting metabolomics initiatives will allow for better data sharing and coordination of metabolomics efforts both nationally and internationally," said James M. Anderson, M.D., Ph.D., director of the NIH Division of Program Coordination, Planning and Strategic Initiatives, which oversees trans-NIH program areas, including those supported through the NIH Common Fund.

Three Regional Comprehensive Metabolomics Resource Cores have been awarded from the first round of applications, with the potential to award 2-3 additional at a later date. NIH will invest over $7 million this year in the first three centers, with plans to invest over $28 million over five years. The Regional Comprehensive Metabolomics Resource Cores will increase the national capacity to provide metabolomics profiling and data analysis services to investigators.

The University of Michigan's resource core is a fully integrated program that will provide researchers nationwide with the expertise and infrastructure for metabolomics in addition to training opportunities. The principal investigator of the grant is Dr. Charles Burant who is experienced in metabolomics, diabetes, and obesity research. He is assisted by Dr. Stephen Brown as a program coordinator on day-to-day operations.

University of California, Davis's resource core will serve clinical and biomedical researchers across the West Coast, with access to cutting-edge tools, collaborations and interpretation of data. The leader of this effort is Dr. Oliver Fiehn, who is experienced in metabolomics technologies and databases. He is assisted by Dr. William Wikoff as program coordinator.

The third award goes to Research Triangle Institute in Research Triangle Park, N.C., which is positioned as a leader of regional metabolomics center and offers a comprehensive range of services and collaborative opportunities for metabolomics technologies. The principal investigator of the grant is Dr. Susan Sumner, who has extensive experience and expertise in metabolomics technologies. She is assisted by Dr. Jason Burgess as program coordinator.

In addition to these three comprehensive metabolomics cores awards, a data repository and Coordination Center (DRCC) is also being awarded to the University of California, San Diego. NIH will invest $2 million this year in DRCC and potentially invest $6 million over five years. The DRCC will provide necessary organization and present all data from the cores and other metabolomics efforts to the biomedical research community. The DRCC functions as a coordinating hub so that the awardees can function as a consortium. Dr. Shankar Subramaniam, who has extensive experience in integration of omics data and has experience coordinating other large scale projects, leads the effort at UCSD. All awardees operate as cooperative agreements with NIH and collectively function as a consortium and lead collaborative activities related to metabolomics.

Grant funds West Coast Metabolomics Center

With a $9.3 million startup grant from the National Institutes of Health, the University of California, Davis, has announced plans to open the West Coast Metabolomics Center, a high-tech consortium of research and service laboratories that will help scientists better understand and develop more effective treatments for complex diseases like diabetes, cancer and atherosclerosis.

The facility, which will be housed within the UC Davis Genome Center, will celebrate its grand opening Oct. 8 with a mini-symposium featuring UC Davis and regional scientists, and corporate supporters.

Metabolomics is a new field that looks at the biochemical changes taking place in living cells during metabolism. The West Coast Metabolomics Center at UC Davis will use more than 30 mass spectrometers — instruments for analyzing chemical structures — to target thousands of different molecules produced in cells, allowing researchers to look at changes taking place at specific times and under specific environmental conditions.

"The NIH recognizes metabolism as a very important part of human physiology and disease processes," said Oliver Fiehn, professor of molecular and cellular biology and director of the new center. "When you analyze metabolism, you can tell the state of the body at the onset and during the progression of diseases ranging from cardiovascular disease to cancer."

The new center brings together existing UC Davis service facilities in mass spectrometry, nuclear magnetic resonance and imaging, with research labs across the campus, Fiehn said.

It will help researchers throughout the western U.S. with small grants for annual pilot and feasibility studies, provide courses, statistics and bioinformatics services, and perform metabolomic analyses on a fee-for-service basis. The center is designed to be self-sustaining within five years.

One of researchers who plans to use the new center is UC Davis Professor Bruce German, who studies lipid metabolism, especially in milk production, in the Department of Food Science and Technology.

"This new center shows the effects of the university’s long-term investments into biochemistry and genomics," German said.

Source: UC Davis News and Information