PHRT Center for Metabolomics and Lipidomics
The PHRT initiative
Through our involvement in the external pagePersonalized Health and Related Technologies (PHRT)call_made by the external pageETH Domaincall_made (embedding ETHZ, EPFL, PSI, EMPA, Eawag and WSL), we aim at providing metabolomics and lipidomics analysis that address the acute needs of modern clinical research and personalized health and adds value to the existing infrastructure. The PHRT initiative aims at improving the quality of healthcare through earlier and better diagnosis as well as providing a choice of individual therapeutic strategies for the patient based on their unique biological make-up. The PHRT initiative parallels and sinergizes with the external pageSwiss Personalized Health Network (SPHN)call_made initiative of the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences.
One pillar of the PHRT activities is to provide cutting edge technology which requires expert knowledge to clinical research. These include:
- genomics, as provided by the external pageHealth2030 Genome Centercall_made in Geneva, a.k.a. CGAC
- proteomics, as provided by the Clinical Proteotype Analysis Center (CPAC)
- metabolomics/lipidomics as provided by us, a.k.a. the Clinical Metabolomics Analysis Center (CMAC)
These centers are united in the PHRT Swiss Multi-Omics Center (SMOC). Within the SMOC, all parties are in close contact. If you need more information, don't hesitate in contacting any of the CGAC, CPAC, and CMAC staff.
Activity of PHRT-CMAC
In a clinical setting, metabolomics and lipidomics can be used in discovery, validation, and diagnostics. Each of these tiers has different requirements and poses distinct challenges.
Performing this type of analysis at scale demands specific (and expensive) instruments, technical knowhow, experience in operating sensitive equipment, and substantial software development which are not covered by existing facilities for clinical chemistry. Over >10 years, our lab specialized in these activities with own developments to enable data acquisition, processing, analysis, and visualisation. As a research lab, we analyzed > 1 Mio untargeted analyses, including >200 experiments with more than 1'000 samples each, many of which were external collaborations. This expertise sets us apart from other labs, and is the cornerstone of our service.
We perceive speed, scale, and competitive costs as key factors in clinical research. These are essential to provide statistically sound investigation of complete clinical cohorts (up to 10'000 samples) at affordable conditions. With our analysis, we pursue to quickly inform on potential markers or pathways that are of bio/medical interest.
Further information:
Further Metabolomics and Lipidomics facilities in Switzerland
The discovery phase is typically followed up with targeted analyses that are quantitative, tailored to specific subclasses, and entail only representative samples. Targeted measurements for validation or diagnostics are normally provided by core labs at Swiss Hospitals and Universities. To avoid duplications, such targeted measurements are currently excluded from our portfolio.
These are (some of the) recommended metabolomics facilities in Switzerland: