Meeting your educators

Welcome to our course Metabolomics: Understanding Metabolism in the 21st century.

In this step we will introduce the educators who will teach this course and provide a description of their research backgrounds and motivation in applying metabolomics in their work.

You may choose to visit the profiles of your educators and follow them to view their comments during the course. We encourage you to participate in the comment areas, build up a network of people to follow and interact with your educators and fellow learners.

We all work within the metabolomics research area, although we originate from different scientific backgrounds and have different areas of specialisation within metabolomics. Our motivation is to develop the metabolomics science as a practical tool that is applicable to range of biological applications within the medical sciences, environmental sciences and microbial research.

Lead Educators

Professor Warwick (Rick) Dunn – Co-Lead educator of this course, Professor of Analytical and Clinical Metabolomics, Director of the Birmingham Metabolomics Training Centre, and Director of Mass Spectrometry, Phenome Centre Birmingham. Rick is an analytical chemist, interested in developing and applying techniques from analytical chemistry (mass spectrometry) and computer science to advance the application of metabolomics in studying health, ageing and diseases in humans. Rick is a keen fell walker and football fan, a regular visitor to Bramall Lane to watch Sheffield United and sing along to the chip butty song.

Professor Mark Viant – Co-Lead educator of this course and Professor of Metabolomics, and Executive Director, Phenome Centre Birmingham. Mark is a chemist, interested in developing and applying techniques from analytical chemistry (mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometry) and computer science to innovate the metabolomics and toxicology fields. Mark is an avid plane fanatic and loves attending air shows.

Educators

Dr Catherine (Cate) Winder – Co-developer of this course and Operations Manager for the Birmingham Metabolomics Training Centre and Phenome Centre Birmingham. Cate is a biologist, interested in the application of bio-analytical techniques to study biological systems. She specialises in the application of metabolomics to study microorganisms in biotechnology and systems biology approaches. Cate is a keen baker and enjoys gardening.

Dr Ralf Weber– Co-developer of this course and Director of Bioinformatics, Phenome Centre Birmingham. Ralf is a bioinformatician who specialises in developing and applying data processing, biostatistics and data mining tools to derive clear biochemical interpretations of clinical and environmental metabolomics data. Ralf is a fanatical chess and football player, and likes to travel to see the wonders of the world.

Dr Jasper Engel – Radboud University and honorary member of the Birmingham Metabolomics Training Centre. A biostatistician specialising in the development and application of novel data analysis procedures for the analysis of metabolomics data. In his free time Jasper enjoys playing the saxophone, hiking, cycling, visiting concerts and hunting for old vinyl.