Job Opportunities

DC4: Exploration of metabolism pathways of olive biophenols using UPLC-HRMS/MS profiling and metabolomics approaches

Host institution: Department of Pharmacy, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA), Greece

Supervisor: Prof. Maria Halabalaki

Co-Supervisors: Dr. Isabel Garcia-Perez, Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction, Imperial College London (ICL), United Kingdom (Academic); Mrs. Anna Ramata-Stunda, Alternative Plants, Riga, Latvia (Industrial)

Project description

BioTransform is a multidisciplinary doctoral network aiming to investigate the role of health promoting constituents found in food products (food bioactives – FB), focusing on their metabolism. FB coexist with nutrients, but they are biologically active compounds present in our diet and characterised by great structural variability and biological properties. Despite the imperative role of gut microbiota in health maintenance and disease prevention, the available information regarding FB metabolism remains scarce and the biotransformation occurring in the human organism highly unexplored. Thus, the goal of BioTransform is to combine state-of-the-art methods, technologies and approaches in a complementary and integrated way to reveal the impact of FB and their metabolites (biotransformation products) on health and disease. To this end, human pilot studies, in vitro and in silico metabolism simulation methods, gut microbiota sequencing, metabolite profiling and metabolomics will be employed. Metabolites will be biologically profiled through biochemical and cell-based assays. In BioTransform, the metabolism of olive and bilberry FB (secoiridoids, phenols and polyphenols), which are European flagship food products with proven activity in metabolism-related pathologies, will be systematically investigated.

Your tasks

The tasks involve establishing a comprehensive UPLC‑HRMS/MS profile of the olive biophenols‑based supplement, applying the same platform to profile and annotate metabolites in plasma, urine and faecal samples from the MedUniGraz and NKUA‑Med human studies, and developing statistical models to discover relevant metabolites as biomarker candidates.

Host laboratory

The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA), was the first University founded (1837) in the Eastern Mediterranean region. It has 33 Departments and 224 laboratories, covering a wide range of scientific disciplines. The number of teaching and research employees is more than 1,900 while the number of students is more than 40,000. More than 14,000 students follow master’s programmes and more than 8,700 are PhD candidates. The Department of Pharmacy (NKUA-Pharm) with its Laboratory of Valorization of Bioactive Natural Products (LaV_BioNP) is interested in the discovery of new active natural products (NPs) with various applications (pharmaceuticals, food supplements, cosmetics) from Greek, Mediterranean and global biodiversity. The research expertise includes extraction, isolation and identification of NPs, development, and validation of analytical methods via state-of-the-art technologies, metabolomics (fingerprinting and profiling) in plant extracts and biosamples, metabolism studies and discovery of biomarkers in biological substrates (plasma, urine tissues, faeces).

Secondments This project is carried out in strong collaboration with the following groups, and visits to their laboratories are expected during the project. A willingness to travel and spend time abroad is therefore essential:

• Isabel Garcia-Perez Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction, Imperial College London (ICL), United Kingdom
• Gints Smits, Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Pharmacology, Latvian Institute of Organic Synthesis (LIOS), Riga, Latvia
• Anna Ramata-Stunda, Alternative Plants, Riga, Latvia

Specific eligibility conditions and selection criteria

• Master’s degree (or equivalent giving access to PhD enrolment) in Analytical Chemistry, Food Chemistry, Biochemistry, Pharmacognosy, Metabolomics, Biostatistics/Data Science, or a closely related field, awarded by the start date.
• Excellent written and spoken English (typically C1/C2 or equivalent).
• Desirable assets (one or more of the following): statistics & modelling (multivariate analyses), UPLC‑HRMS/MS operation, Metabolomics data processing & annotation, natural products’ chemistry.