Research project
The Netherlands X-omics Initiative
The Netherlands X-omics Initiative is a new facility as part of the National Roadmap for Large-Scale Research Infrastructures. It is partly funded by NWO with a total budget of 40 million euro. The project started on September 2018 and will last for ten years.
- Duration
- 2018 - 2028
- Contact
- Thomas Hankemeier
- Funding
-
NWO
- Partners
All partners involved in the X-omics Initiative can be found on the project site: https://www.x-omics.nl/organisation
Aim
The project aims to establish a X-omics research infrastructure across the Netherlands consisting of several existing facilities with various expertise’s related to molecular biology research (genomics, proteomics, metabolomics and data integration & analysis).
Through the project, we will:
1. Advance X-omics technologies far beyond state-of-art,
2. Realize an integrated X-omics infrastructure in the Netherlands.
Access will be provided to these facilities to enable researchers to use the newest X-omics technologies in their projects and drive new insights in biology. Thomas and his team at Leiden University lead the metabolomics pillar of the X-omics initiative
Challenges to be addressed by the infrastructure
Metabolomics will be used to detect the onset of diseases, to reveal disease mechanisms, and to choose the proper prevention and treatment strategy.
To make this possible, we will address the following main challenges:
(1) higher throughput, lowering costs and sample needed to enable single cell and population-based metabolomics analyses
(2) absolute quantitation for more metabolites enabling the combination of different studies and additional data analysis strategies such as fluxomics
(3) studying the dynamics within and between cells and tissues and the human body.
(4) translation and implementation of metabolomics findings into the clinic