EMN December Webinar Series: "Translation of clinical metabolomics into routine applications"

Translation of clinical metabolomics into routine applications

Presenter: Prof. David Friedecký (Head of the Department of Clinical Biochemistry, University Hospital Olomouc, Czech Republic)

David Friedecký is an analytical chemist and professor of clinical biochemistry with over 20 years of experience in routine laboratory diagnostics. Currently, he is the Head of the Department of Clinical Biochemistry at the University Hospital Olomouc, Czech Republic. His expertise includes the clinical applications of liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry in the analysis of small molecules. He has developed or co-developed many FIA-MS and LC-MS methods that have found applications in national newborn screening, second-tier diagnostics and therapeutic drug monitoring. Scientifically, as the leader of the Clinical Mass Spectrometry Group at the Faculty of Medicine of Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic, he uses clinical metabolomics and lipidomics to understand the pathobiochemistry of diseases (mainly cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases, cancer or hyperuricaemia and gout), or in the development of advanced multicomponent methods that find application in clinical practice.

Presenter: Barbora Piskláková, MSc. (PhD candidate, Faculty of Medicine, Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic)

Barbora Piskláková is a Ph.D. candidate in Clinical Biochemistry and Medicinal Chemistry at the Faculty of Medicine, Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic and a researcher in the Clinical Mass Spectrometry Group. Her main research achievement was the development of a fast and easy-to-use multicomponent LC-MS method for the analysis of organic acids, acylglycines and acylcarnitines in urine as a panel capable of diagnosing more than 80 inherited metabolic disorders. Her work shows how challenging it is to bring metabolomics into clinical practice where the full analytical and clinical validation of this novel method took over 5 years and measurement of 800+ patient samples. Now, this method is considered the method of first choice in our diagnostic lab and has replaced the conventionally used GC-MS approach. Additionally, Barbora is using metabolomics in the study of cytidine metabolism in relation to cytarabine treatment for leukemia. She has also completed a 3-month internship at Oslo University Hospital, Norway at Katja Benedikte Prestø Elgstøen Metabolomics group.