Unique chemical biology tools to explore gut microbiome metabolism – Advanced metabolomics for biomarker discovery for pancreatic cancer

New diagnostic tools are required for the early detection of pancreatic cancer to counter low survival rates alongside the design and synthesis of new specific drugs.

The discovery of new biomarkers for pancreatic cancer is urgently required and the impact of host-microbiome interactions on the development of pancreatic cancer is still largely unknown.

Biomarkers are unique characteristic indicators representing a disease-specific physiological state, which can readily be utilized for the development of specific diagnostics.

Selective identification and quantification of metabolites at low concentrations is a crucial step towards the discovery of unknown microbiome-related metabolites and biomarkers in humans.

This project plan focuses on the discovery of new metabolic markers as the crucial step towards an improved pancreatic cancer diagnosis. The analysis of metabolites has been termed metabolomics, the newest major omics-field.

Our recently established unique and advanced methodologies at the interface of chemistry and biology for enhanced metabolome analysis overcome limitations of metabolomics-based biomarker discovery such as large variations in metabolite concentrations, interference by matrix background and challenges of metabolite structure identification.

Our comprehensive and unique mass spectrometric metabolomics strategy will allow for elucidation of gut microbiota and human host co-metabolism in the context of pancreatic cancer.