METAFLUX · Metabolic Flux Analysis and Cancer

The post-genomic era has been driven by the development of technologies that allow the function of cells and whole organisms to be explored at a molecular level. Metabolomics is concerned with the measurement of global sets of low-molecular-weight metabolites, which represent important indicators of physiological or pathological states of organisms. Such profiles provide a more comprehensive view of cellular control mechanisms in man and animals, and raise the possibility of identifying surrogate markers of disease. Metabolomic approaches use analytical different techniques to measure populations of low-molecular-weight metabolites in biological samples. To decipher large metabolic data sets advanced statistical and bioinformatic tools are commonly employed.Although metabolomics has only recently emerged, dynamic profiles generated in Metabolic Flux Analysis (MFA) are becoming increasingly important to analyse biological networks in a quantitative manner and as part of systems biology approaches. MFA allows us to probe hypotheses by incorporating a priori biological knowledge to provide practical descriptions of observed cell behaviours, and to characterise the outcome of network perturbations. Flux analysis is of particular value for the diagnosis, differentiation and elucidation of mechanisms in cancer. This was recognised as early as 1924 by the Nobel Prize winner Otto Warburg who attributed cancer to a change in cellular energy production. This theme has experienced a revival in recent years through research, which has established mitochondrial dysfunction as a major mechanism in cancer.This proposal seeks funding for a truly interdisciplinary European consortium to train researchers to exploit the gains of new technologies provided by metabolic flux analysis in the context of cancer with a mixed focus on new developments and applied end-points.