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Spatial metabolomics: from a niche field towards a driver of innovation

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Spatial metabolomics has matured and is driving innovation in mass spectrometry, metabolomics and spatial omics. With exciting discoveries, complementary capabilities and increasing accessibility, it has secured its place in the spatial biology toolbox, showing promise in biology, medicine and pharmacology.

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Acknowledgements

I thank B. Wadie from our team at EMBL for feedback on the manuscript draft; M. Becker, who was my first guide into imaging MS; P. Dorrestein and J. Watrious, who introduced me to metabolomics; and to our team members at EMBL with whom I had the pleasure of learning other spatial omics and multi-omics.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Structural and Computational Biology Unit, European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Heidelberg, Germany

    Theodore Alexandrov

  2. Metabolomics Core Facility, EMBL, Heidelberg, Germany

    Theodore Alexandrov

  3. Molecular Medicine Partnership Unit, EMBL and Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany

    Theodore Alexandrov

  4. Bio Studio, BioInnovation Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Theodore Alexandrov

Authors
  1. Theodore Alexandrov
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Correspondence to Theodore Alexandrov.

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Competing interests

T.A. holds several patents in spatial metabolomics and is a BioStudio Faculty member at the BioInnovation Institute in Copenhagen, where he leads commercialization of the spatial single-cell metabolomics technology.

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Nature Metabolism thanks Ton Rabelink for his contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Alexandrov, T. Spatial metabolomics: from a niche field towards a driver of innovation. Nat Metab 5, 1443–1445 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42255-023-00881-0

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