Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV)

1. Universitat Rovira i Virgili-Electronic Engineering Department-IISPV, Tarragona, Spain
2. CIBER de Diabetes y Enfermedades Metabólicas asociadas (CIBERDEM), InsItuto de Salud
Carlos III, Madrid, Spain

Abstract
With the advance of analyIcal and computaIonal technologies, metabolomics exhibits
unprecedented possibiliIes for early drug development.1 Metabolomics can help
understanding disease mechanism, idenIfying new therapeuIc targets and drug mode of
acIon2,3. In this session, we will describe novel developments in mass spectrometry-based
metabolomics and their applicaIon to early drug development. We will highlight recent
examples were spaIally resolved metabolomics (MSI), stable isotope tracing, and new
computaIonal pipelines can be applied to phenotypic drug discovery.

References

1. Alarcon-Barrera, J. C., Kos3dis, S., Ondo-Mendez, A. & Giera, M. Recent advances in metabolomics analysis for early drug development. Drug Discov Today 27, 1763–1773 (2022).
2. Pang, H. & Hu, Z. Metabolomics in drug research and development: The recent advances in technologies and applica3ons. Acta Pharm Sin B 13, 3238–3251 (2023).
3. Wishart, D. S. Emerging applica3ons of metabolomics in drug discovery and precision medicine. Nat Rev Drug Discov 15, 473–484 (2016).

Brief CV
I am the PI of the MIL@b research group and Adjunct Professor to the Department of
Electronic Engineering at Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV). My research has been devoted to
advance Metabolomics technologies with special emphasis on ComputaIonal Metabolomics.

With more than 15 years of post-doctoral experience in the field, my career has been
structured around two main research direcIons: (i) Development of new computaIonal tools,
technologies, concepts, and paradigms to drive metabolomics to a funcIonal genomics tool;
(ii) ApplicaIon of metabolomics in combinaIon with other -omics sciences for the study of
fundamental biological processes in health and disease (parIcularly diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer). I have a strong record of publicaIons in the field, and I have parIcipated in more than 20 projects funded through compeIIve calls securing ~1.5M€ as PI. In addiIon, I have developed and deployed the MSc Biomedical Data Science where I currently act as academic coordinator.