The School

Nutritional metabolomics has recently appeared as a holistic and high throughput approach to identify and characterize biochemical pathways that underlie multifaceted associations between dietary exposures and chronic diseases with altered metabolic phenotypes. Compared to a foodomics, related just to the food metabolite characterization before consumption, nutritional metabolomics has strongly emerged to study the effects of dietary compounds on human metabolism after consumption, and/or to identify dietary intake biomarkers.

Epidemiologic studies suggest that dietary patterns can potentially significantly lower the risk of certain diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease and more recently Parkinson’s disease.

The Mediterranean diet rich in natural antioxidants, vitamins, and phytochemicals are perceived as healthful by Western countries, but there is a limited scientific proof that dietary compounds can affect or perturbate the human metabolism.

The ability to identify new correlations between dietary habits and health, or between consumption of specific foods and disease-related outcomes has presented important challenges due metabolite identification and to individual variability in complex metabolic pathways and digestion.

Themes

Participants will learn about:

  • How to design a metabolomic experiment;
  • How to measure nutritional and metabolism biomarkers;
  • How to find correlations between dietary habits and health.

Who should attend

The School is targeted at graduate students and early-stage researchers in metabolomics and bioinformatics. Participants should have some metabolomics experience. Some statistical data analysis experience will be helpful, but not strictly required.

Lecturers

Cristina Andres-Lacueva, Nutrition, Food Science & Gastronomy Department, University of Barcelona, Spain. CIBER of Frailty and Healthy Aging (CIBERFES)

Andrea Armirotti , ITT, Genova, Italy

Luigi Atzori Department of Biomedical Sciences, Oncology and Molecular Pathology Unit, University of Cagliari, Italy

Lorraine Brennan – Institute of Food and Health and Conway Institute, UCD School of Agriculture and Food Science, Dublin, Ireland

Pierluigi Caboni, Department of Life and Environmental Sciences, High Resolution Mass Spectrometry Laboratory, Food Toxicology Unit, University of Cagliari, Italy

Marina Cocchi, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy

Lars Ove Dragsted, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Pietro Franceschi,  Fondazione Edmund Mach, Trento, Italy

Hector Gallart Ayala, UNIL Metabolomics University of Lausanne, Switzerland

Jules Griffin , University of Cambridge, UK

Julijana Ivanisevic, UNIL Metabolomics University of Lausanne, Switzerland

Cristina Piras , University of Cagliari, Italy

Serge Rezzi , Nestlé Institute of Health Sciences, Lausenne, Switzerland

Reza Salek, International Agency for Research on Cancer, WHO, France

Paola Scano, Department of Chemical and Geological Sciences, University of Cagliari – Istituto Studio Macromolecole, CNR, Milano, Italy

Matteo Stocchero , University of Padova, Italy

Marynka Ulaszewska , Fondazione Edmund Mach, Trento, Italy

David Wishart , University of Alberta, Canada

Format

The course is scheduled to begin on the afternoon of Monday ​Oct. ​1st 2018; Tue-Thu will be full course days, while Friday ​Oct. 5th will be a half day, with the course finishing at lunch time.

  • First two days hands on activities (tutorials), introductory lectures ;
  • Third and fourth day lectures and presentations.

Under the tutors guidance, the practical sessions will give students the opportunity to learn and design metabolomic experiments. Participants will be able to develop nutritional metabolomics studies.

Students will have ample time to meet and speak with lecturers, especially at the coffee breaks, lunches and social events.