ILSI 2022 Annual Meeting Session 5: The coming revolution of the Omics sciences

Dr. Carlos Malpica Lizarzaburu, CEO of MLP Vision Biotech S.L, Spain

Carlos Malpica Lizarzaburu was trained in France as an Agronomic Engineer at Institut National Agronomique Paris-Grignon and Pasteur Institute and obtained his PhD. in Biotechnology from Paris University 7. Additionally he holds a diploma from the Spanish Diplomatic School and an International Executive MBA from Instituto de Empresa (Spain).

Dr. Malpica currently focuses in promoting the adoption of new precision medicine tools based on multi-omic technologies. He is the CEO of MLP Vision Biotech S.L., a global consultancy firm, with clients including biocrates life sciences ag and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT).  He is also the Vice-President of BioEuroLatina, a non-for-profit organization that aims at fostering the collaboration between Europe and Latin America in Biotechnology.

Past activities include CEO of Valdia Health S.L., Global Business Development Director and European Director at Metabolon Inc. (USA). Marketing and Sales Director at Biopolis S.L. (Spain), Research Director at L’Oréal Group (France), CEO of Kina Biotech S.L. (Spain), Global Business Development Manager at Syngenta A.G. (Switzerland), Head of Business Development Europe at Novartis Seeds S.A.S. (France) and Biotechnology Research Coordinator at the Danone Group (France).

Metabolomics to analyze food components and current database development – Dr. David Wishart, University of Alberta, Canada

Abstract: In this short presentation I will outline some of the metabolomics techniques and assays that we have developed to analyze foods and food components, along with some of their results. These will include studies on the metabolomics characterization of milk, wine, beer, beef, fruits and vegetables. I will also describe our efforts to place these experimental data, along with other literature-derived data in various databases including: FooDB (a general food database), NP-MRD (a general natural products database), Phenol-Explorer and PhytoHub.

Dr. David Wishart (PhD Yale, 1991) is a Distinguished University Professor in the Departments of Biological Sciences and Computing Science at the University of Alberta. For the past 15 years, Dr. Wishart has led the “Human Metabolome Project” (HMP), a multi-investigator project that is cataloguing all the known chemicals in human tissues and biofluids (now numbering more than 250,000). More recently, Dr. Wishart’s efforts have focused on using the same methods developed for the HMP to help characterize the chemical constituents in various foods (through a database called FooDB). Over the course of his career, Dr. Wishart has published more than 500 research papers, which have been cited more than 100,000 times.

What are we eating? Metabolomics can give us an insight – Dr. Lorraine Brennan, Professor, School of Agriculture and Food Science, University College Dublin, Ireland

Abstract: Applications of metabolomics in nutrition research has increased in recent years. The applications can be generally be grouped into one of the following: (1) Applications to identify dietary biomarkers for single foods or for dietary patterns (2) Applications to dietary intervention studies to help understand metabolic alterations following certain diets and (3) Applications to diet-related diseases. With respect to dietary biomarkers there has been a proliferation of publications in this field: these biomarkers have the potential to act as objective measures of dietary intake thus overcoming some of the key issues with traditional assessment methods. To date, metabolomic profiling has been successful in identifying a number of putative biomarkers of food intake. While significant progress has been made in this field a number of challenges remain and will be discussed.

Professor Lorraine Brennan is a full professor and a PI in the UCD Institute of Food & Health and Conway institute. She leads a nutritional metabolomics group that are at the forefront of the application of metabolomics in nutrition research and the development of Personalized nutrition. Her group develop strategies for using metabolomics profiles to aid assessment of food intake and for delivering personalised nutrition.

She served as Director of the European Nutrigenomics Organization for 5 years and led a number of important initiatives such as the development of an Early Career Network and expansion of membership of the organization. Recently, she was appointed to the National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine Standing Committee on Evidence Synthesis and Communications in Diet and Chronic Disease Relationships.

Foodomics: The significance for future food – Dr. Alejandro Cifuentes, Full Research Professor at the Institute of Food Science Research (CIAL), National Research Council of Spain (CSIC), Madrid, Spain

Abstract: Foodomics has been defined as a discipline that studies the Food and Nutrition domains through the application and integration of advanced omics technologies (i.e., massive analysis techniques) to improve consumer’s well-being, health, and confidence. Foodomics allows addressing issues related to food safety, bioactivity and quality that were unapproachable until a few years ago. In this work, we will present some of the huge possibilities made possible by using Foodomics, in which we combine the background and tools from different areas of knowledge to unravel the huge complexity of the Foodome which has been defined as the pool of all compounds present in a food sample and/or in a biological system interacting with the investigated food at a given time.

Alejandro Cifuentes is a Full Research Professor at the National Research Council of Spain (CSIC) in Madrid, Head of the Laboratory of Foodomics and Director of the Metabolomics Platform (International Excellence Campus CSIC + UAM). He has been Founding Director of the Institute of Food Science Research from CSIC. Alejandro's activity includes advanced analytical methods development for Foodomics (including transcriptomics, proteomics, lipidomics and metabolomics), food quality and safety, as well as isolation and characterization of natural bioactive compounds and their effect on human health. He is member of the Editorial Board of 17 international journals, Editor of TrAC-Trends in Analytical Chemistry and Electrophoresis, Editor-in-Chief of Open Life Sciences and Specialty Chief Editor of Frontiers in Nutrition (Nutrition and Food Science Technology). He has published more than 300 SCI papers (plus 30 books/book chapters and 9 patents) that have received more than 20000 citations. Alejandro has given more than 200 invited lectures in different meetings in Europe, Asia, Africa, America and Oceania. He has defined for the first time in a SCI journal the new discipline of Foodomics.