Emory
Chapel Hill, United States
Andrey P. Tikunov, Ph.D., assistant professor, Emory, School of Medicine.
I have studied single carbon metabolism and tumor-induced changes in energy production and storage for over ten years - learning and designing new methods and approaches. One of my first projects in the field of metabolomics was directly related to the discovery of the novel method for distinguishing the flux of methyl groups in glycine-serine conversion happening in cytoplasm vs. in mitochondria. A few years later I extended this approach to the whole organism; studying inter-organ relationships in energy production and storage. In collaboration with multiple researchers, I developed stable isotope tracing techniques for measuring how tumor development affects 13C flux through glycolysis and pentose phosphate pathway, and Krebs cycle. I have also studied drug-induced metabolome changes and toxicology. My recent research of tumor-induced changes in the methionine cycle and transsulfuration pathway pointed at the importance of inter-cellular metabolomic exchange. With that in mind, I proceeded with learning two new novel methods: 1) spatially resolved metabolomics and 13C fluxomics (MALDESI of the intact tissue slices) and 2) single sell transcriptomics (scRNA-seq). I believe that a detailed understanding of the tumor-specific metabolism of cancer cells combined with the roles of supportive cells (e.g. astrocytes in the brain) or organs (liver) will result in more efficient and less damaging, custom-tailored therapies.