Backdrop

Metabolomics along with lipidomics represents the final piece of the ‘omics puzzle. The metabolome, including lipidome, encompasses small molecule - metabolites that in addition of being downstream products of gene and protein activity also have a far-reaching activity in the regulation of gene and protein expression and biological processes in general. Information contained in metabolites provides a direct, sensitive and dynamic read out of the cellular activity, i.e. phenotype at the molecular level. Metabolomics has evolved into the high-throughput technology to complement the multi-scale data acquisition afforded by genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics, towards systems approach to biology and medicine.

The Metabolomics Platform at the University of Lausanne has been created in 2016 as a service and research unit to provide the state-of-the-art mass spectrometry-based, small molecule analyses with a wide range of applications in biochemistry, evolutionary biology and ecology, fundamental biomedical research, clinical research and stratified and personalized approach to medicine. To implement the state-of-the-art techniques and create a successful and competitive technology center, our platform was equipped with high-end liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry (UHPLC-HRMS) and tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) systems for large scale qualitative and quantitative metabolite and lipid analyses. This setting, by offering leading-edge technologies and innovative metabolomic approches to study metabolism, provides a context for integration into a systems biology environment to the local academic community (University of Lausanne - UNIL, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois - CHUV, and Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne - EPFL) and external academic and industrial partners across Western Switzerland and beyond.