Thursday, 02. February 2023, 4.15 p.m. 

Ernst-Abbe-Platz 2, 4. Etage – SR 3423

Prior knowledge as a compass guiding untargeted metabolomics

Dr. Adriano Rutz
(Institute of Molecular Systems Biology, ETH Zürich, Switzerland)

While chemical analysis of complex biological matrices has been limited for long by technology, current analytical instrumentation allows for high-throughput, high-quality data. Thus, the main challenge of metabolomics today is no longer data acquisition, but data interpretation.

Over the past decade, computational tools to guide the analysis of metabolomic data have improved remarkably. However, these improvements are often siloed and highly domain-specific, preventing interpretation, translation, and use of the data within a broader context. Access to high quality linked data therefore appears essential to allow cross-fertilization of the different Life sciences.

In this talk, I will first introduce the LOTUS initiative¹ as a model for open dissemination of metabolite information via Wikidata. Next, I will show how the inclusion of prior knowledge can be used to improve mass spectrometry-based metabolite annotation².

Encouraging researchers to access and curate these data while sharing their own will lead to a better understanding of the interaction between complex biological systems and chemicals.

¹ <https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.70780>
² <https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2019.01329>