Xinsong Du, a Ph.D. candidate in biomedical informatics mentored by Dominick Lemas, Ph.D., received a 2-year, $45,000 fellowship from the UF Informatics Institute to fund his dissertation research project, “Enabling Reproducible Untargeted Metabolomics Research: Next Generation Untargeted Metabolomics Data Analysis Workflow.”
Metabolomics is an emerging research field that have been used in several clinical research topics including precision medicine, clinical biomarker discovery, and drug development. However, reproducibility is challenging given that metabolomics studies feature many complex computational workflows with myriad tools to generate its results and the research results. The project will conduct literature reviews regarding reproducibility of metabolomics research and propose approaches and tools for improvements. Du began working on his fellowship project in May 2021 and is preparing several papers for publication.
The data for this project is generated by Dr. Lemas’s K01 Mentored Research Career Development Award from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) that will investigate how human milk and exclusive breastfeeding in the first year of a child’s life protects against childhood obesity. The NIDDK is part of the National Institutes of Health.
“Mr. Du is an excellent candidate for this award and we are very appreciative of the UF Informatics Institute for its support,” said Lemas.