Abstract
The omics evolution began at the end of the 20th century with the cloning of the human genome. The 21st century has already seen the development of comprehensive proteomics analyses, but the emerging evolution is to metabolomics, the definition of which is the identification and quantification of all of the molecular constituents of the cell including its nucleic acids, amino acids, sugars, and fats. But by far, the largest number of distinct molecular species in cellular metabolism lies in the fats (or lipids) where tens of thousands of distinct molecular species exist in cells and tissues. The speaker and his research group have applied novel liquid chromatographic-mass spectrometric based lipidomics techniques to carry out an overall omics analysis of immunologically-activated macrophages integrating transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics of lipids. Their laboratory has developed a robust and comprehensive approach to the lipidomics analysis of hundreds of fatty acids and inflammatory eicosanoids and analyzed the fluxes of metabolites using the results of transcriptomics and directed proteomics approaches. Also lipidomic analysis of cells supplemented with fish oil omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA provides information on the overall effects of fish oils anti-inflammatory action. Lipidomics has also been used to explore influenza infections by lipidomic profiling of bioactive lipid species in a mouse influenza model and in human nasopharyngeal lavages obtained during the influenza season. Human plasma has also been profiled to quantify almost six hundred distinct lipid molecular species present across all mammalian lipid categories; the implications for the future of clinical medicine and the understanding of the mechanisms of disease will be discussed.
About the speaker
Prof Edward Dennis received his PhD in Chemistry from Harvard University in 1968. He was postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Medical School until 1969. He joined the University of California at San Diego in 1970, and is currently Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmacology.
Prof Dennis’ research focus has been on inflammation, lipid metabolism, phospholipases, eicosanoids and lipidomics. He has authored over 360 publications and patented numerous inventions. He is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Lipid Research.
Prof Dennis received numerous awards including the Avanti Award in Lipid Enzymology from the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the European Lipid Science Award from the European Federation for Lipid Science and Technology. He is a Member of the American Society of Biological Chemists and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences.
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