The HUMAN-DN doctoral network (human-dn.eu) is a multidisciplinary international consortium in which students, professors, and partners worldwide work together to “Harmonise and Unify Blood Metabolomic Analysis Networks”. One of the main project goals is to investigate the implementation of novel blood microsampling in clinical metabolomics and establish suitable workflows for biomarker analysis. Our role here is to study biomarkercandidates that reflect the metabolic response to dietary and physical exercise challenges on blood micro samples, by using a non-targeted metabolite profiling approach.
Last October, our HUMAN-DN doctoral candidate Dennisse Avella together with Prof. Kati Hanhineva participated in the second annual meeting of the HUMAN-DN at the Imperial College of London in the United Kingdom. Students and professors from all the related countries and institutions attended the event.
The doctoral students were trained on transferable skills such as negotiation, communication, and oral presentations and presented a summary of their first year in the consortium. Dennisse showed the process of living, studying, and doing research in Kuopio, Finland. She is doing her PhD At the University of Eastern Finland and working with Afekta Technologies Ltd. She also presented how the non-targeted metabolomics approach and analytical workflow she has been using, allowed the differentiation of the blood micro samples, plasma, and whole blood metabolomic profiles, the distinction between male and female samples, and the identification of unique and common metabolites crucial in sex differentiation.
This was a great opportunity to see the results from the different labs, discuss related topics, and define strategies to face the upcoming steps of the project, and foremost, meet the HUMAN-DN colleagues and enjoy time together at the ever-wonderful London!