Welcome to
our Home Page.
Research: There are three broad research themes in our group:
(1) We are actively developing and using metabolomic technologies for the rapid
accurate characterisation of biological systems. This is achieved predominantly
using mass spectrometry-based analytical instrumentation that produces
'holistic' whole-organism metabolite data of bacteria, fungi, human and animal
body fluids and plant materials.
(2) As illustrated in the front covers above we are also very actively
developing a wide range of vibrational spectroscopic approaches for the
analysis of biological systems. The
bacterium second on the left illustrates our work on surface enhanced Raman
spectroscopy for bacterial detection, the one next to it some of the
chemometric approaches we have been applying to Raman spectra, and the one on
the far right our interests in chemical imaging (using Fourier transform
infrared microspectroscopy) of complex biological systems.
(3) In order to analyse these high dimensional multivariate data we have been
very active in the development of novel chemometric and machine learning
techniques, and in generating tutorials and standards documents for reporting
and best data analysis practises.
Software: A new data analysis tool has been developed called PyChem. This is a new open source chemometrics package in Python. Read all about it in Bioinformatics. For those interested in Matlab our code for cluster analysis with code can be found here.
Metabolomics: This is an exciting dynamic research area that is gaining momentum and we are please to announce:
Journal: Metabolomics was launched in 2005. Tweet journal information available. E-Submit your papers via http://mebo.edmgr.com following the instructions to authors.
Society: The Metabolomics Society promotes the growth and development of the field of metabolomics globally.
Interest group: Metabolic Profiling Forum
Standards: Papers are available here and were generated under the auspices of the Metabolomics Standards Initiative.
Future Meetings: Metabomeeting 2009,
5-9 July,
Projects: Our research can
be divided into several themes: (1) Mass spectrometry for high-throughput
metabolomics; (2) Integrative omic analyses and systems biology for
understanding biological systems; (3) Development of a wide variety of Raman
spectroscopic methods; (4) Metabolomics and proteomics in health and disease;
(5) Rapid characterisation of microorganisms; (6) Rapid characterisation of
foodstuffs.
Funding: Many thanks to BBSRC, EPSRC, HOSDB, European Commission FP6 and FP7, and Royal Society of Chemistry for financial support.
Location and Contact: We are located in the Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre (www.mib.ac.uk) a £35M building designed to bring together physical scientists, engineers, computer scientists and mathematicians to attack and solve complex, multidisciplinary biological problems.
Prof Roy Goodacre,