Modelling metabolism in the human gut to understand inter-tissue metabolism during ageing

Proposed research: To provide training in a range of analytical chemistry and biological techniques the following research is proposed:
(1) Urine and faeces from animals and humans (from infants to old; male and female) as well as human intestinal derived organoid cell models will be analysed applying GCxGC-MS applying a 'deep annotation of the metabolome' (DAM) strategy which will maximise the number of metabolites detected and subsequently structurally identified.
(2) With the list of target metabolites derived in step (1), a GCxGC-MS semi-targeted assay will be developed and optimised to measure as many metabolites as is possible with the inclusion of internal standards and calibration curves for metabolite absolute quantification.
(3) The semi-targeted assay will be applied to collect data on metabolism from urine, faecal and tissue samples to model age-related metabolic changes and the impact of changes in the gut microbiome composition on these metabolic changes.