Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine recently announced a new Center for Metabolomics and Isotopomics (CMI), to be directed by Henri Brunengraber, MD, PhD. The CMI is located on the ninth floor of the Biomedical Research Building, across from the Center for Proteomics and Bioinformatics.
Brunengraber, who also chairs the Department of Nutrition, joined the School of Medicine faculty in 1990. His well-established lab has one of the largest Gas-Chromatography/Mass-Spectrometry facilities in Northeast Ohio, and his work has increasingly focused on metabolomics, developed over the past 10 years as part of the omic research strategy.
Funding for research in metabolomics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine began in 2005 with grants from the NIDDK RoadMap Initiative and NIEHS. Research supported by these grants demonstrated the potential of the association of metabolomics and stable isotope technology for the discovery of new metabolic pathways. The association of metabolomics and stable isotope technology (Isotopomics) became the niche of a group of CWRU investigators working with Brunengraber in the Department of Nutrition and in the Mouse Metabolic and Phenotyping Center. The latter is specialized in the use of stable isotope technology and mass spectrometry to measure metabolic fluxes in rodents.
The center welcomes investigators using mass spectrometry or/and NMR for metabolomic or metabolic investigations. Additionally, the center will conduct training in isotopic techniques for metabolic, physiological and pharmacological studies. This training will take place at CWRU and in a yearly national course in Little Rock, March 12-16.