I just returned from the St Louis Metabolomics Symposium that was held earlier this week. The event was sponsored by LECO, AB SCIEX, Gerstel, Monsanto and Restek. Metabolomics is the study of the small molecules or metabolites resulting from specific cellular processes. The idea is that metabolite profiles can help reveal biological processes including disease mechanisms. The presentations were interesting and covered different aspects related to the analytical chemistry of metabolomics…ranging from ion mobility separations to database informatics. The speakers have graciously allowed me to post their presentations on ChromaBLOGraphy. See the links below.
I spend most of my time working on food safety projects…sometimes delving into an environmental project. It is a logical move because both test for compounds like pesticides and PAHs. Every once in a while I get to help on something a little more exotic and unfamiliar like helping my colleague Jack Cochran with a GCxGC metabolomics project last year. It was fun because I got to do something totally different. I did a lot of reading and asked plenty of questions. While reviewing a GCxGC chromatogram, I asked “why is it so skinny?”. This piqued (no pun intended!) my interest and resulted in a simple idea…using general chemistry and selectivity to use more of the GCxGC space, “fatten” the chromatogram, for metabolomics relevant compounds…the goal was to take advantage of this technique…like Jack and Mark Merrick of LECO have done with their true peak capacity increase studies.

You can see the results for yourself in my presentation…and be sure and check out the other presentations, too.

 

Presentations

High Resolution GC-MS for Metabolomics Applications

Vladimir V. Tolstikov; Lilly Research Laboratories

 

Analysis of Lipids using SelexION Technology

Fadi Abdi, AB SCIEX

 

Metabolomics in agricultural research: Expanded applications and database capabilities for volatile compound capture and tracking  –

Kirsten Skogerson, Monsanto

 

Investigating GCxGC Separations Using Selective Column Chemistry and Compound Derivitization Pairings for Common Metabolomics Compound Classes –

Julie Kowalski, Restek

 

Comprehensive GCxGC-MS for Eukaryotic Metabolomic Studies –

Dr. Mark Styczynski, Georgia Institute of Technology

 

 

This entry was posted on Friday, March 15th, 2013 at 8:30 pm and is filed under Conferences, GC/MS, GCxGC, LC-MS/MS, Sample Cleanup, Tips & Tricks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.