MUSSE

Pictured left to right: Dr Ute Roessner (University of Melbourne Node Leader, Metabolomics Australia), the Hon. Gavin Jennings, Victorian Minister for the Environment, Climate Change and Innovation and Professor Tony Bacic (Platform Convenor, Metabolomics Australia).

Metabolomics Australia’s Victorian node, a new $9.5 million facility headquartered at the University of Melbourne, has been opened by the Hon. Gavin Jennings, Victorian Minister for the Environment, Climate Change and Innovation.

The portal web site of Proteomics and Metabolomics Victoria (PMV) was also launched at the opening ceremony. It is now publicly accessible at www.pmv.org.au.

“Nowhere else is there a cross-sector network of this nature, involving collaboration between academia, trade and industry,” said Professor Mike Hubbard of the University’s Department of Paediatrics, who spearheaded the PMV initiative.

PMV aims to provide education about proteomics and metabolomics, to help scientists access these technologies, and to facilitate practitioners’ interactions with the numerous companies supplying this field.

Metabolomics Australia has network nodes in Victoria (University of Melbourne), Queensland (University of Queensland), South Australia (Australian Wine Research Institute Ltd) and Western Australia (University of Western Australia, and Murdoch University).

Metabolomics is the study of metabolites – the products of cellular metabolism. Metabolic reactions include the production of energy and the manufacture and breakdown of molecules, and are so specific that they can be used as indicators of the condition of the cell, or ‘biomarkers’. The new facility will provide a state-of the-art metabolomics service to Australian researchers in academia and industry.

Biomarkers can indicate disease abnormalities such as cancer and determine responses to drugs or environmental effects. Metabolomics can also be used to monitor food quality and to discover new biomolecules (bioprospecting) from plants and animals for products like medicinal compounds, novel crops and biofuels. Metabolites can be examined from an individual cell, tissues, fluids, organs and the entire organism.

The University of Melbourne node involves the School of Botany (Professor Tony Bacic and Dr Ute Roessner from the Victorian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics and the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics) and the Bio21 Molecular Science and Biotechnology Institute (Professor Richard Wettenhall, Professor Malcolm McConville and Dr Vladimir Likic).

“This is an exciting step for the Metabolomics Australia Facility and has been six years in the planning. Metabolomics Australia is now fully operational and ready for business,” said Professor Tony Bacic, Platform Convenor, Metabolomics Australia Victorian node.

“With the help of powerful computing and improved software it will be possible to map metabolites onto known metabolic pathways and also identify novel pathways and networks of responses that will lead to the identification of the function of proteins/genes as well as the discovery of new biomarkers,” Professor Bacic said.

The Melbourne node is supported by funding of $5.3 million under the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) and $2.65 million provided by the Victorian Government funds. The University of Melbourne is contributing $1.65 million to the venture.

An additional $2 million in NCRIS funding via the Australian Bioinformatics Facility (ABF) of Bioplatforms Australia Ltd will support Metabolomics Australia’s bioinformatics capability to manage the vast amounts of data being generated. With Bioplatforms Australia Ltd as the newly-established coordinating body, this investment will deliver services in the specialist areas of genomics, proteomics, metabolomics and bioinformatics through networks of collaborating organisations.

The facility has also employed five bioinformaticians to analyse and interpret the huge quantities of data.

Work at the new facility will focus on medical, agricultural and environmental applications of the technology. The major emphasis is expected to be in three areas:
• the discovery of biomarkers in diverse areas, including biomarkers of disease, drug-responsiveness, health and fitness, agriculturally important crop plant characteristics and environmental stress responses (such as responses to climatic change and salinity)
• the chemical profiling of patients and test organisms in response to disease, genetic variation or therapeutic treatments and of GMOs (genetically modified organisms) as a tool in risk assessment
• the bioprospecting for novel compounds produced by native plants and animals that have potential as commercially valuable medicinal or other bioactive compounds.