You may think you’re just an average Joe, but according to your metabolomics data your body is percolating some expressive information about your daily life.
You may think you’re just an average Joe, but according to your metabolomics data your body is percolating some expressive information about your daily life.
“Metabolomics measures small molecules called metabolites that reflect the physiology of the body, and can reveal specific details about you. Researchers can see specific metabolites - such as caffeine - in your blood, and form hypotheses about your diet, lifestyle or environment,” said Stanford University School of Medicine Postdoctoral Fellow Tejaswini Mishra, Ph.D. “For example, if we detected caffeine in your blood, it is likely that you had coffee before giving blood. With more data, we could also track your coffee-drinking habits, and perhaps even learn something about what type of coffee you drink! We might also see pesticides or derivatives of medications in the data, from which one could hypothesize whether a person gardens or farms, or lives in proximity to one, and which medications they might be on.”
Mishra is integrating multi-omics data for NASA’s Twins Study and comparing all the metabolites in retired twin astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly. She saw a number of Scott’s metabolites increase in levels when he went to space and when he returned to Earth some of those stayed elevated. By integrating data from other Twins Study investigations, she hopes they can determine the cause of this elevation.
“It is incredible and powerful to have such rich data but it also is a little scary,” Mishra said. “It really underscores the importance of securing your personal data, who you share it with, how you store it and protect it.”
Read more at NASA/Johnson Space Center
Image: NASA astronaut Scott Kelly enjoys his first drink from the ISSpresso machine on the International Space Station. Twins Study investigators saw metabolite levels increase when Scott went to space. (Credit: NASA)
