VIU Metabolomics Group

Welcome to the VIU metabolomics group!

We are an enthusiastic group interested in combining analytical chemistry, biology, and engineering to build and apply custom mass spectrometry equipment to study metabolites in biological systems. Metabolites are small biomolecules such as lipids, sugars, and amino acids that are involved in all biological processes. Profiling an individual’s dynamic metabolome can help understand fundamental biological processes, and provide objective disease diagnosis. However, the structural diversity of metabolites in biology is vast and includes non-polar molecules such as cholesterols and highly polar molecules like amino acids. To complicate matters further, the natural abundance of metabolites found in biology can range by several orders of magnitude. Research projects in our group focus on new ways to measure metabolites in biological samples and use mass spectrometry imaging to map the distributions of metabolites directly in tissue.

If you are interested in joining the group please contact Kyle for more information at kyle.duncan@viu.ca.