Metabolomics 

Metabolomics is the science of measuring metabolites – the small molecules that are integral to every living system. These include the molecules that give food its flavor, the molecules that give flowers their color, the molecules found in diet supplements and the molecules that doctors use to make life-saving medical diagnoses. Metabolomics allows scientists to identify thousands of different molecules in a single biological sample. This is revolutionizing many areas of life science: from healthcare to agriculture to environmental science. The Metabolomics Innovation Center (TMIC) is helping to lead the way – provincially, nationally and globally.  

Facility Overview 

TMIC is Canada’s national metabolomics laboratory. It consists of 9 different Nodes located in 4 different provinces across Canada. It performs about $5 million worth of chemical analysis services each year. The Wishart Node, which is housed at the University of Alberta, is the largest node in TMIC and accounts for about 50% of TMIC’s business. It processes more than 20,000 samples a year from hundreds of clients around the world. TMIC’s central objective is to move metabolomics out from the lab and into the home, the clinic, the farm and industries across Canada.  In other words, we want to “make metabolomics matter” 

Upcoming Projects 

The Wishart Node of TMIC is taking on a number of exciting metabolomics and chemical analysis projects, many of which are well poised to be used commercially. These include: 

• Early Disease Detection – Identifying chemical biomarkers in blood for early-stage lung cancer and stroke prediction. 

• Petrochemical Analysis – Characterizing thousands of previously unknown compounds in crude oil and bitumen. 

• Drug Detection – Developing rapid assays for identifying illegal drugs in seized materials, in water supplies or in patient biofluids. 

• Beverage & Food Testing – Characterizing 100s of flavor and aroma compounds in wine, beer, milk, and juice. 

• Robotics – Developing robotic systems for lower cost, higher-throughput metabolomics analysis 

• Metabolomics kits – Creating easy-to-use, low-cost kits that allow labs around the world to measure up to 1800 different chemicals from just a drop of blood or a drop of water. 

Overcoming Challenges 

The biggest challenge facing metabolomics is its lack of accessibility.  The methods are difficult, the instruments are big, the analysis is time-consuming and the costs are high. This turns a lot of users off from metabolomics.  That’s unfortunate because the information you can get from a single metabolomics test can save your life, transform your business or help launch a new field of science. The Wishart Node at TMIC has spent the last 10 years trying make metabolomics faster, easier and cheaper. This required lots of hard work, huge amounts of money and plenty of innovation. With the release of our latest metabolomics kits, our new robotics systems and our latest portable metabolomic devices, we believe we have finally overcome that accessibility barrier. Over the last 6 months we’ve seen an explosion of interest in these made-in-Alberta systems and are struggling to keep up with orders. This is not only good for metabolomics, but it’s great for TMIC. 

To learn more about the Wishart Node in TMIC and what it can do for you, please visit:

https://www.tmicwishartnode.ca/