Bits & Bites #10: How to navigate demands in Metabolomics core services

This 10-part short course series will feature in-depth topics in untargeted metabolomics such as Bayesian statistics, a deeper look into MS-DIAL, fundamental courses in mass spectrometry, lipidomics, and so many others. Each short course can be taken individually or you can select multiple Bites. Participants will gain a deeper insight into current software, methods, and pitfalls. Each session starts promptly at 9 a.m. (Pacific Time) and will take approx. 4 hours. The courses will be conducted in a highly interactive manner, with the use of freely available software and databases. The tuition is $150 USD per Bite.

This last, 10th course (for 2022) is taught by Dr. Oliver Fiehn from UC Davis, and no prior knowledge or software is required. Biologists and biomedical investigators need metabolomic data but must rely on services from metabolomic service providers in Universities or private companies. Interests in metabolomics services are very diverse, ranging from PK/PD to untargeted metabolomics, and from flux analysis to absolute quantifications of pathway intermediates. How can metabolomic service cores manage such demands and expectations with limited resources? At UC Davis, we have run metabolomics services for the past 16 years. In this short course, we will provide a strategic overview on how to deploy tools, spot and fill bottlenecks, assess your core’s capacity, scale up from small studies to 1000s of samples and provide high-throughput / high-quality services in a time and cost-efficient manner. We discuss how to consult with clients, how to provide educational resources, and how to manage staff and budgets. Recognizing that there is no one-size-fits-all strategy, we will survey measures on how to best engage your research community to utilize metabolomics services.