Dr. Shuang Zhao and his Work in Metabolomics
Dr. Shuang Zhao is the Vice President of Nova Medical Testing Inc. (NovaMT), based in Canada. He earned his Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Alberta, specializing in LC-MS-based metabolomics. Since joining NovaMT in 2018, Dr. Zhao has played a pivotal role in overseeing operations and leading the development and commercialization of innovative technologies, including the innovative HP-CIL Metabolomics Platform and in-depth Global Lipidomics Platform.
In addition to his role at NovaMT, Dr. Zhao is a node manager at The Metabolomics Innovation Centre (TMIC), where he contributes to groundbreaking research in clinical, biomedical, and agricultural metabolomics. His expertise and leadership continue to drive NovaMT’s mission of advancing medical diagnostics through cutting-edge technology for large-scale small molecule analysis.
Metabolomics and More
In his interview, Shuang Zhao discusses his journey and views on the growing field of metabolomics. He was introduced to the discipline during his Master’s at Tsinghua University in 2012 and its potential to improve understanding of drug metabolism specifically sparked his interest.
Key takeaways include from the interview:
- Innovative Techniques: Zhao discusses the development of methods like differential chemical isotope labeling LC-MS, which enhance metabolomic analyses in terms of coverage and accuracy.
- Commercialization Efforts: His team focuses on making advanced technologies accessible, providing comprehensive solutions for metabolomics and lipidomics that can be applied in areas such as disease biomarker discovery and agriculture.
- Global Research Trends: Zhao observes a rise in metabolomics research in both Canada and China, noting Canada’s advantages with established tools like the Human Metabolome Database.
- Advice for New Researchers: He shares his advise to aspiring scientists which includes the recommendation to develop a broad skill set that includes analytical chemistry and bioinformatics to succeed in this rapidly evolving field.
Zhao’s interview highlights the collaborative nature and practical potential of metabolomics, marking it as an important area for future scientific progress.
Read the full article here: MetaboNews September Issue
Metabolomics At TMIC
- Chemical Isotope Labeling LC-MS (CIL-LC-MS): This technique provides high-coverage analysis of metabolites and environmental chemicals.
- Global (Untargeted) Lipidomics Profiling uses a cutting-edge method to analyze the lipidome in both positive and negative ionization. It typically detects, identifies and relatively quantifies more than 5,000 lipids for positive ionization and more than 2,000 lipids for negative ionization.
- Microbiome Metabolite Assay allows accurate relative quantification of 851 microbiome metabolites in comparative samples, including known microbiota-related and other microbiota-host-related endogenous metabolites
- Plant Metabolome Assay (PMA), one of the newest assays with accurate relative quantification of up to 8,275 plant metabolites in comparative samples, including plant hormones, secondary metabolites, primary metabolites and many other general pathway related metabolites.
