Biomarkers in metabolic disease

Important results from the project

My aim with this project is to use the technique metabolomics in biomarker discovery projects of relevance for metabolic diseases, and by doing so reaching the personal goal of becoming an international leader within the field. Personal goals include: 1) increased knowledge and experience in biomarker discovery using metabolomics 2) increased possibilities for successful interactions with the clinic as well as with pharmaceutical companies 3) increased scientific production Scientific goals include: 1) one or more biomarker projects will be run, including identification and validation of biomarkers for metabolic disease 2) one or more scientific papers will be published

Expected long term effects

I will work towards the goals described above, which will increase the utility of metabolomics in biomarker discovery but also improve my career. By learning more about the technique and how to extract useful information out of the collected data, and at the same time be open-minded regarding the needs from patients, doctors and pharmaceutical companies, the chances are good that I will run similar projects also in the future.

Approach and implementation

I will spend 50% of my time in Södertälje together with Ina Shuppe-Koistinen at AstraZeneca R&D. She will guide me through the whole process of biomarker discovery. Since we are both interested in metabolic prcesses within the liver, and there is a need for new improved markers for fatty liver, we will start with a project using already available samples of relevance for this. These samples will be delivered by Mats Eriksson at Karolinska Institutet, who has been working with this type of patients for a long time. However, Ina, Mats and I have already started to discuss and plan for the ideal project, from which samples will be collected during the course of the initial project.