GigaScience Pushes Metabolomics Open Data & Training - GigaBlog

"With our focus on large-scale biological data, mass spectrometry has been one area of particular interest and attention. Metabolomics involves the detection and quantification of small molecules (metabolites) in living organisms using mass spectrometers. The measurements made from these sophisticated instruments are analysed using computational programs to determine the abundances of metabolites, the results of which can provide an indication of an organism’s cellular condition and health. These data can be stored and shared through public repositories such as EBI’s MetaboLights database, which launched in 2012. However, data sharing has some way to go yet to keep pace with the publication of scientific papers in the field. To address this a new partnership between the EBI, the Universities of Birmingham, Manchester and Oxford, The Sainsbury Laboratory and TGAC with BGI and GigaScience, has received funding from the UK’s BBSRC to support the sharing of data and analyses in metabolomics. This is our second BBSRC UK-China collaboration grant ..."