Why is this research important to Alberta?

• Alberta’s agriculture, health, and environmental sectors face growing challenges from food contaminants, toxic exposures, and complex diseases, but the tools to detect and measure the thousands of chemicals involved are limited.
• Metabolomics, the study of small molecules in the body and environment, is a powerful but underutilized tool for diagnosing disease, monitoring food safety, and assessing environmental harm.
• Expanding Alberta-based metabolomics capacity directly supports provincial priorities in precision health, agri-food safety, and environmental stewardship, while strengthening Canada’s position as a global leader in this emerging field.

What is the goal of this work? How will genomics be used?

• The goal is to develop and validate a new generation of metabolomics assays and bioinformatics tools through TMIC, Canada’s national metabolomics facility, headquartered at the University of Alberta.
• New assays are being built to detect pesticides/herbicides, mycotoxins (food mold toxins), drug metabolites, lipids, smoke/cannabis products, and thousands of other compounds in blood, urine, and tissue samples.
• Advanced mass spectrometry platforms and chemical isotope labeling techniques allow detection of up to 30,000 unique chemicals per sample – 5x more than existing chemical tests.
• Single-cell metabolomics tools are being developed to study disease at an unprecedented level of detail.
• AI-powered bioinformatics tools, including MetaboAnalyst, OmicsAnalyst, and ContaminantDB, are being updated to help researchers and clinicians interpret complex datasets faster and more accurately.
• Partners span six universities across Canada: University of Alberta, McGill, UBC, McMaster, Concordia, and UVic.

What are the expected benefits, and how will the research findings be shared?

• Health: New clinical-grade assays will enable earlier, more precise diagnosis of diseases including cancer, cardiovascular disease, and metabolic disorders; several assays are being developed toward ISO clinical certification.
• Economic: TMIC’s fee-for-service model serves academic, government, and industry clients across Canada; expanded assay capabilities grow the addressable market and strengthen Alberta’s biotech sector.
• Agricultural/Environmental: Mycotoxin and pesticide assays directly support food safety testing for Alberta’s agri-food industry; smoke/cannabis assays support environmental and occupational health monitoring.
• Social: Freely available databases (HMDB, FooDB, ContaminantDB) and software tools (MetaboAnalyst) ensure research findings reach the global scientific community at no cost.

Related Resources

Related information can be accessed through:

• TMIC website: https://metabolomicscentre.ca/
• Research Publications: https://metabolomicscentre.ca/publications/
• Human Metabolome Database (HMDB): https://hmdb.ca/
• Data tool – MetaboAnalyst: https://www.metaboanalyst.ca/
• Data tool – OmicsAnalyst: https://www.omicsanalyst.ca/