Thermo Fisher, UC Davis Launch Center of Excellence for Metabolomics

Thermo Fisher Scientific and UC Davis recently launched The Center of Excellence in Clinical Metabolomics to support the rapid scale-up of large cohort studies and clinical research.

The Center of Excellence in Clinical Metabolomics, based on the UC Davis Sacramento campus, will provide the metabolomics community with innovations, best practices, and standard operating procedures. 

The collaboration will allow for the development of targeted and untargeted metabolic profiling for cohorts across research and precision medicine, as well as standardized processes for the research community. 

The standardized processes include optimized liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry methods, protocols for analytical controls, and training courses for metabolomics staff, scientists, and core lab managers, a Thermo Fisher Scientific spokesperson said. 

"The progress we've made in the areas of vaccines and therapy development during the pandemic would have been impossible without ongoing commitments to invest in and share new scientific techniques, and this underscores the importance of our collaboration with UC Davis," Mark Stevenson, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Thermo Fisher Scientific, said in the announcement.  

"The work we'll do here serves science by refining basic, but critical scientific techniques for metabolomics so they can quickly become clinically relevant,” Stevenson continued. 

Metabolomics allows researchers to identify diagnostic biomarkers for disease, discover new drug targets, develop tools to predict drug response, and enable overall precision medicine. 

The center will leverage Thermo Fisher Scientific’s Orbitrap technology along with its Vanquish Duo UHPLC system to generate high-quality data for increased throughput. 

The combination of technology will support the development of streamlined workflows for large-scale studies and translational research. 

"We aim to provide advance training courses for early career community members as well as independent investigators and scientists, and this will be supported by state-of-the-art technology from Thermo Fisher," said Oliver Fiehn, director of West Coast Metabolomics Center at the UC Davis Genome Center. 

"This collaboration will drive the creation of innovative analytical approaches for both untargeted and targeted applications providing the metabolomics community with advanced methodologies for their vital work,” Fiehn concluded.