Lipidomics from Structure to Function

Even with a lipid content of over 10% in the human body, lipids were not in the central scientific focus during the last decade. However, more and more evidence is provided that non-genetically determined biomolecules such as metabolites and lipids are the key to biomolecular regulation.

Today it is obvious that lipids are not only important for energy homeostasis and as an environmental-cellular barrier, but also represent a central part of our signal transduction machinery. Disruptions of the sensitive lipid metabolism are highly correlated with different types of diseases including thrombocytopenia, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, obesity and hyperlipidemia. This is especially true for the latter ones, which are also reaching pandemic levels, causing a larger annual health burden than infectious diseases.

Therefore, lipid metabolism is again becoming an emerging scientific field and is a central part of pharmacological research today (statins, cyclooxygenase inhibitors). Therefore, the mission of the Lipidomics group in Vienna is to understand lipids in context with their proteins (enzymes) and building blocks (metabolites) in a true systems biology way.

Who should attend:

Anybody with a basic analytical knowledge.

Presenter: Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Robert Ahrends (Department of Analytical Chemistry, University of Vienna (Austria))

Robert Ahrends is Professor of Analytical Chemistry at the University of Vienna (Austria), Robert founding member of the International Lipidomics Society and Member of the Lipid Standard Initiative. He obtained his Dr. rer. nat. at the Humboldt University zu Berlin and spend his postdoctoral time at Stanford Medical School in the Department of Chemical& Systems Biology. His lab’s research focus on lipid research by developing omics tools to analyze lipids and their metabolizing enzymes in a cardiovascular context.