On Friday 17 April Leiden Mayor Henri Lenferink has officially opened the new Metabolomics Facility of Leiden University. The facility is the fruit of a collaboration between the BioMedical Facility of the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research and the Natural Products Laboratory of the Institute of Biology Leiden and offers researchers and companies access to a unique combination of fields of expertise.
Its ultimate goal is to contribute to the prevention of disease and to improve health throughout the human lifespan. Thomas Hankemeier, Leiden Professor of Analytical Biosciences: ‘Genes predict the risk of developing a given disease, and metabolic measurements determine the actual health of a patient. The combination of genetic research and metabolomics research allows us to study the development of diseases. This powerful combination means that metabolomics will form an important component of the clinical laboratory of the future.’
The facility will be used to conduct measurements for Leiden University Medical Centre, Erasmus Medical Centre and leading clinics such as the Mayo Clinic. Close collaboration has been sought with international companies such as Janssen Pharmaceutical and Unilever. The metabolomics facility will also be used by a number of BioScience Park companies, including Astellas, ZF-screens, Inovo, and the Centre for Human Drug Research. Read more