Our team in the Phenome Centre Birmingham

Our highly experienced team provide a comprehensive metabolomics consultancy service.

Working alongside academic, industry and government institutions, we undertake activities developing best practice in metabolomics, such as the OECD group Metabolomics Reporting Framework (MRF) (Viant - Chair) which aims to establish standards for reporting toxicological metabolomics. More broadly, our team represent the field at high-level international groups such as the OECD Expert Advisory Group on Molecular Screening and Toxicogenomics (EAGMST) (Viant).We engage with our colleagues and peers, addressing barriers in metabolomics and supporting development and growth in the field through Metabolomics Society task groups, in areas such as Model Organism Metabolomes (Viant - Chair), Data Standards (Viant - Member), and Data Quality (Viant - Member).

Specialist support is tailored for your research by our experts in clinical metabolomics, human toxicology and metabolomics, mass spectrometry, data processing and data analysis, and facility management.

Professional Engagement

Our team are heavily involved in the Metabolomics Society, with several undertaking leadership positions, such as President (Viant, 2012-13), Director (Viant, 2008-15, Weber 2019-Current), and a Lifetime Honorary Fellowship (Viant). Our team founded and developed the society's Early-career Members Network (EMN), supporting researchers new to the field (Viant, Weber).

Training & Development

Our partner organisation, the Birmingham Metabolomics Training Centre (BMTC), provides training to empower the next generation of metabolomics researchers, was co-founded by members of our team (Viant, Weber). The BMTC has provided both face-to-face and online metabolomics training to scientists from over 340 organisations, across 55 different countries and 5 continents.

Grant Review Panels

Our experts sit on grant application panels, and have revied grant applications for funding organisations such as NERC, BBSRC, MRC, EPSRC, Wellcome Trust, Royal Society, NC3Rs, British Heart Foundation, Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research, and the National Institutes of Health.

Business Manager

Mr David Epps

David is a Business Manager working alongside the scientific team providing strategic facility management. David supports with project workflows, operations, and overall financial management, and is responsible for ensuring a high-quality customer experience for Phenome Centre Birmingham clients.

d.epps@bham.ac.uk

Analytical staff

Dr Andy Southam

Experimental Officer in Untargeted Metabolomics & Lipidomics

Dr Andy Southam pioneered the development of the direct infusion mass spectrometry spectral-stitching method as part of his PhD at the University of Birmingham (awarded in 2009). During this time he developed an interest in applying untargeted metabolomics to understand liver cancer metabolism and continued this research as a post-doctoral research fellow in Professor Chris Bunce’s research group. Andy joined the Phenome Centre as an Experimental Officer in Metabolomics and Lipidomics in 2017.

Dr Donna O'Neil

Analyst in Targeted Metabolomics

Dr O’Neil obtained her PhD at the University of Birmingham applying proteomics to identify biomarkers for the detection of colorectal cancer. She worked in the Institute for Cancer Studies and the Centre for Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism for 8 years, applying targeted MS/MS to analyse steroid hormones in serum and urine. Donna joined PCB in January 2016 as an Analyst in Targeted Metabolomics.

Data Processing & Biostatistics

Dr Gavin Lloyd

Experimental Officer in Biostatistics

Dr Gavin Lloyd obtained his PhD in 2009 at the University of Bristol, on the development of chemometrics and pattern recognition techniques for multivariate datasets. Following his PhD, he worked at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital developing chemometric routines to process vibrational spectroscopy data in cancer diagnostics. Gavin joined the PCB team in 2017 as an Experimental Officer in Biostatistics.