Pharmacology Section
High quality quantitative measurement of circulating biomarkers are essential in many epidemiologic studies related to nutrition and health. This includes studies of morbidities such as CVD, cancers, mental disorders, and pregnancy outcomes. We constantly work to optimize the analytical repertoire of the laboratory.
Main content
The analytical repertoire of BEVITAL is composed to answer specific questions addressed in epidemiological and clinical research based on large biobanks.
Complementary platforms are characterized by multiplexing and low volume consumption to save precious biobank material. Targeted metabolic profiling includes defined pathways, i.e. one-carbon metabolism, choline oxidation, transsulfuration, and tryptophan degradation pathway and co-factors involved. The repertoire also includes biomarkers of common confounders, such as smoking, inflammation and kidney function. This contrasts to untargeted metabolomics, which capture only abundant metabolites and with the inherent weakness of possible assay interference.
BEVITAL is partner in numerous projects. These include two EU projects, “Metabolomic profiles throughout the continuum of colorectal carcinogenesis” (MetaboCCC) and ”Biomarkers related to folate-dependent one-carbon metabolism in CRC recurrence and survival” (FOCUS), and one large multicenter study on lung cancer, organized within the frame of the lung cancer consortium (LC3), funded by US NCI. The latter study includes 11000 cases and controls recruited from 20 centers, in Europe, US, Asia and Australia.
