Thomas Payne – EMBL-EBI

Thomas Payne is a Curator within the Metabolomics Team at EMBL-EBI responsible for MetaboLights. He worked previously as a Bioinformatic/Computational Research Associate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln centre on the large-scale, computational analysis of metabolomics, lipidomics & proteomics data. He has a PhD in Metabolic Phenotyping from Imperial College London under the supervision of Professor Jeremy Nicholson. 

Gonçalo Correia – Imperial College London

Gonçalo is a Research Associate at the Imperial MRC-NIHR National Phenone Centre (NPC) and at the Clinical Phenotyping Centre (CPC).
His main research interests are in the development of bioinformatic workflows and pipelines for the pre-processing and analysis of metabolic profiling data (Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and mass spectrometry) and on the statistical data analysis of metabolic phenotyping dataset and other -omic datasets.
For some of his work, see the publication list below or checkout his personal github profile and the NPC Informatics team github profile.

Theodore Alexandrov – EMBL

Theodore Alexandrov is a team leader at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), the Europe’s leading life science laboratory. He is also the head of the EMBL Metabolomics Core Facility and a faculty of the Molecular Medicine Partnership Unit between EMBL and Heidelberg University. The Alexandrov team at EMBL aims to reveal the secrets of metabolism in time and space in tissues and single cells by developing experimental and computational methods. In 2022, he is launching a BioStudio startup-in-making project at the Bioinnovation Institute in Copenhagen aimed at commercialization of spatial single-cell metabolomics for drug discovery and personalized medicine.

Yann Guitton – MetaboHub

Yann is the head of the metabolomics, lipidomics and steroidomics center in Nantes. He has a background in agronomy and a PhD in plant physiology. Since his PhD research project, he has worked on several non-targeted metabolomics projects and has improved his skills in bioinformatics data processing. Yann also has a good knowledge of software from MS manufacturers (Thermo, Agilent, Waters and Shimadzu mainly). Today, he is particularly interested in the automation of mass spectrometry data processing tasks in the GALAXY environment

Elena Chekmeneva – Imperial College London

Elena is a Research Associate in Structural Elucidation of metabolites at Imperial College London. Her current research work involves development of analytical methods and comprehensive pipelines for metabolites identification using a variety of analytical techniques, such as mass spectrometry, NMR spectroscopy, and chromatography together with advanced statistical analytical tools. Elena enjoys teaching as well as learning. The desire to learn inspired her to work in different professional and geographical environment.

Warwick (Rick) Dunn – Liverpool University

Rick is an analytical chemist and biochemist who leads the Analytical and Clinical Metabolomics Group at the University of Liverpool. The group has developed and applied lab-based and computational metabolomics tools in the study of human health, disease and ageing in mammals. He has specific interests in (1) enhancing metabolite annotation in untargeted metabolomics studies and increasing the biological knowledge we obtain from these studies and (2) studying cancer, endocrinology, cardiac diseases and human transplantation.

Lorraine Brennan – University College Dublin

Lorraine is a am a full professor and a PI in the UCD Institute of Food & Health and Conway institute. She leads a nutritional metabolomics group that are at the forefront of the application of metabolomics in nutrition research and the development of Personalized nutrition. She was awarded an ERC consolidator grant in the field for discovery work and currently she is involved in two European Consortiums- Improve and Promed-cog. They develop strategies for using metabolomics profiles to aid assessment of food intake. They also develop strategies for delivering personalised nutrition. Lorriane served as Director of the European Nutrigenomics Organization for 5 years and led a number of important initiatives such as the development of an Early Career Network and expansion of membership of the organization. Recently, she was appointed to the National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine Standing Committee on Evidence Synthesis and Communications in Diet and Chronic Disease Relationships.

Melanie Föll – University Medical Center Freiburg

Melanie Föll is leading the junior research group “MALDI imaging” https://www.uniklinik-freiburg.de/pathologie/forschung/nachwuchsgruppe-maldi-imaging.html at the Institute of Surgical Pathology, University Medical Center Freiburg. The group analyzes clinical tumor tissue cohorts by MALDI mass spectrometry imaging to investigate spatially resolved tumor biology and derive spatio-molecular signatures with diagnostic and prognostic potential. Furthermore, the group establishes open-source tools and reproducible data analysis workflows in the Galaxy platform and works towards improving quality control, standardization and reproducibility of MALDI imaging.

Marynka Ulaszewska – Thermo Fisher Scientific

I am analytical chemist with 12+ years’ experience in application of mass spectrometry in quantitative and qualitative methods. My scientific spirit has driven me through the most advanced and cut edge projects dedicated to analytical improvements in fields of food quality&safety, clinical sciences, and environmental science. I dedicated my scientific career to investigate kinetic responses in humans to nutritional challenges, monitoring ADME of food constituents in different biological fluids. Today my work focuses on untargeted analyses and structure elucidation of small molecules, I am responsible for on-line spectral library mzcloud.org

Egon Willighagen – Maastricht University

Assistant professor (Dutch: “universitair docent”) in the Department of Bioinformatics – BiGCaT group of the NUTRIM research school at Maastricht University. Working on the RiskGONE, NanoSolveIT, Sbd4Nano, and VHP4Safety projects on safety and systems biology of substances and nanomaterials, and the COST action EpiLipidNET. Co-founder of the Chemistry Development Kit, contributor to WikiPathways, and many other open science projects. Former Editor-in-Chiefs of the Journal of Cheminformatics.

Ozgur Yurekten – EMBL-EBI

For more than 20 years, I have participated in many software development, cybersecurity, and digital transformation projects. I have proficiency in software engineering, cybersecurity, project management, digital transformation, and enterprise architecture. I have strong programming skills, especially Python, Java and C++. Over the 15 years of my professional life, I have hands-on experience in secure SDLC and tools, DevOps tools, agile methodologies, containerization technologies, and databases. I have been working at EBI as a software developer since April, 2022.

Michael Zimmermann – EMBL

Michael Zimmermann is a group leader at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg. Michael received his Bachelor’s degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Basel University and his Master’s degree in Biotechnology from the Ecole Supérieure de Biotechnologie (ESBS) in Strasbourg. After research internships at Harvard University and at UCSF, he performed his PhD work at ETH Zurich in metabolomics and Systems Biology and he pursued his postdoctoral training at Yale University to investigate metabolic host-microbiome interactions. His research group at EMBL employs bacterial genetics, metabolomics, gnotobiotic mouse work, and mathematical modeling to systematically map metabolic microbiota-host interactions. Among several honors and scholarships, Michael was awarded the Daimler Benz Scholarship, Agilent’s Steve Berger Award, the 2021 FEBS Anniversary Prize, and an ERC Starting grant.

Noemí Tejera Hernandez – EMBL-EBI

I completed my PhD at La Laguna University (Tenerife, Spain), where among other techniques, I became proficient in the use of GC-FID for the quantification of fatty acids in a wide range of biological samples and set up an HPLC method to analyze carotenoids in diets and biological materials. Upon finishing my PhD, I joined the Department of Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University (US). During my postdoc, I accomplished the identification and characterization of novel lipid mediators generated by human cells and studied the oxidative metabolites of curcumin using HPLC and LCMS. After this, I joined the Department of Nutrition at the University of East Anglia (Norwich, UK), where I was part of several studies in lipid metabolism and a clinical trial that investigated the impact of several factors on flavonoids’ absorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimination in humans. From 2018 to March 2023, I applied my expertise in analytical chemistry to a new field for me, Microbiology, working in the development and validation of metabolic models on Staphylococcus epidermidis and Campylobacter. Since March 2023, I am part of MetaboLights in EMBL-EBI, as a Metabolomics Data Curator.

Krishna Tiwari – EMBL-EBI
I am analytical chemist with 12+ years’ experience in application of mass spectrometry in quantitative and qualitative methods. My scientific spirit has driven me through the most advanced and cut edge projects dedicated to analytical improvements in fields of food quality&safety, clinical sciences, and environmental science. I dedicated my scientific career to investigate kinetic responses in humans to nutritional challenges, monitoring ADME of food constituents in different biological fluids. Today my work focuses on untargeted analyses and structure elucidation of small molecules, I am responsible for on-line spectral library mzcloud.org

Callum Martin- EMBL-EBI
Software Engineer, part of the MetaboLights team since 2021. Developed galaxy implementations for both NMR and MS metabolomics computational tools. Developer and maintainer of MetaboLights & Editor, Metabolights Validation, MetaboLights Compound Library.

ORCID: 0000-0003-4831-4212

Christina Schmidt | University clinics Heidelberg
I studied biochemistry at the Julius-Maximilians University of Würzburg (GER) focusing on molecular and clinical oncology. My aim to study the metabolic rewiring of cancer cells I discovered as part of my seminars with Prof. Almut Schulze (Würzburg, GER), where I later wrote my master thesis. With the support from the Marie Sklodowska-Curie [ITN] Fellowship “TRANSMIT – TRANSlating the role of Mitochondria in Tumorigenesis”, I started my PhD in October 2017 in the lab of Prof. Christian Frezza (University of Cambridge, UK). During my PhD I developed a novel cellular model of Fumarate Hydratase deficiency and cultured it in a 3D system to study the impact of nutrient and oxygen gradients. Moreover, I developed my passion of combining wet-lab experiments with tailored bioinformatics analysis using multi-omics data integration and transitioned into data science. After finishing my PhD in February 2021, I stayed as a Postdoc in the Frezza Lab, which moved to the University of Cologne (GER). During this time, I worked as a data scientist focusing on data landscapes such as transcriptome, proteome and metabolome, applying my knowledge in different collaborative projects. In January 2023 I joined the Saez-Rodriguez group as postdoctoral researcher working primarily in the SMART-CARE consortium to apply mass-spectrometry-based systems medicine to cancer. In this regard I focus on developing computational tools to analyse metabolomics data integrate them with prior knowledge or other data types.

ORCID: 0000-0002-3867-0881

Catherine Winder | Liverpool Institute of Systems
Dr Catherine “Cate” Winder is a Senior Research Scientist in the Centre for Metabolomics Research at the University of Liverpool. She is experienced in applying UHPLC-MS and GC-MS in both clinical and microbial applications. Cate manages the operation of the Analytical and Clinical Metabolomics Group laboratory providing guidance and support to researchers and students working in the group. Cate also co-directs the Liverpool Training Centre for Metabolomics. She is committed to providing training to the metabolomics community has led the development and delivery >15 face-to-face and online metabolomics-based courses and developed the first Massive Open Online Course in metabolomics. Her goals are to train the next generation of metabolomics researchers and support established scientists to apply metabolomics in their research.

ORCID: 0000-0002-1648-5255

Denes Turei | Heidelberg University Hospital
I started off as a freshwater ecologist, then changed to bioinformatics in my PhD. Doing my PhD at Semmelweis University of Budapest, I created signalling pathway databases, a topic that I continued working on in my postdoc. I received an EIPOD postdoc fellowship in 2014, and started to work in the group of Julio Saez-Rodriguez in Cambridge and at Anne-Claude Gavin in EMBL Heidelberg. I developed a comprehensive integrated database to support the modelling and analysis activities in our group. In the Gavin group I created a software for lipidomics LC MS/MS data processing and analysis. In the group of Christoph Merten, also in EMBL, I developed methods for an ex vivo microfluidics combinatorial drug screening. Since then, I still work with Julio Saez-Rodriguez at the Heidelberg University Hospital, and my main activity is scientific software development, especially in the field of databases.

ORCID: 0000-0002-7249-9379

Ibrahim Karaman | EMBL EBI
Ibrahim is a Senior Scientific Programmer at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory – European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), where he works with the MetaboLights team on computational analysis and integration of public metabolomics data. He has more than a decade of experience working with LC–MS, GC–MS, and NMR metabolomics data across academic and industry research environments. His expertise includes metabolomics data preprocessing, chemometrics, and statistical analysis, with an emphasis on reproducible workflows.

ORCID: 0000-0001-9341-8155

Natasa Giallourou | Metabolon
Dr Natasa Giallourou is a Metabolomics Scientist supporting Metabolon’s International Business activities. She provides scientific counsel for metabolomics applications in the biopharma and academic sectors. Natasa obtained her PhD in Metabolomics from the University of Reading and holds an MSc in Nutrition and Health from Wageningen University and a BSc in Biology from the University of Leeds. Prior to joining Metabolon, Natasa served as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at biobank.cy. Her research projects involved integrating metabolomic data with other ‘omics’ data in population-based studies, with a focus on identifying biomarkers for complex diseases. She has also worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Imperial College London, where she specialized in utilizing metabolic phenotyping to address global health challenges, particularly in the field of public health nutrition. Natasa sits on the Board of Directors of the International Metabolomics Society and is also an advisor to the Early-career Member’s Network for young metabolomics scientists.

ORCID: 0000-0001-5081-7367

Nils Hoffmann | Bielefeld University
Nils Hoffmann leads the Datascience and Bioinformatics for Mass Spectrometry group at the Institute of Bio- and Geo-sciences (IBG-5), Forschungszentrum Jülich, Bielefeld, Germany. His research focuses on lipidomics bioinformatics, developing a web-based reference database with a knowledge graph for quantitative lipidomics data. Collaborating with HUPO-PSI, the Metabolomics Society, and international partners, he drives and contributes to standardization efforts for data formats like mzTab-M and mzQC, and enhances interoperability in lipidomics through collaboration with the International Lipidomics Society (ILS). At Bielefeld University, he fosters interdisciplinary collaborations in membrane biology, multi-omics integration, and metagenomics. Through his work for ELIXIR Germany, he advances strategic coordination within de.NBI and ELIXIR, engaging in metabolomics, proteomics, and machine learning communities, and co-leads the federated de.NBI Cloud infrastructure for scientific computing. Prior roles include leading the BMBF-funded LIFS project at ISAS e.V. Germany, contributing to lipidomics tools like LipidCreator and Goslin.

ORCID: 0000-0002-6540-6875

Steffen Heuckeroth | mzio
2015-2018 – B.Sc. Chemistry, University of Münster 2018-2020 – M.Sc. Chemistry, University of Münster 2020-2024 – Ph.D. Analytical Chemisty, University of Münster since 2024 – Co-Founder & CTO, mzio GmbH

ORCID: 0000-0002-4928-2526