Harmonization in lipidomics
Human blood plasma lipidomics based on mass spectrometry (MS) is an emerging tool in an array of clinical diagnostics and disease management. However, challenges exist in the translation of such lipidomic data to clinical applications. These relate to the reproducibility, accuracy, and precision of lipid quantitation, study design, sample handling, and data sharing.

SLING has initiated a community-led process to elaborate and define a set of generally accepted guidelines for quantitative MS-based lipidomics of blood plasma or serum, with harmonization of data acquired on different instrumentation platforms across independent laboratories as an ultimate goal. We hope that other fields may benefit from and follow such a precedent.

The initial guidelines were outline in an open-access position paper published in the Journal of Lipid research in 2018: MS-based lipidomics of human blood plasma: a community-initiated position paper to develop accepted guidelines.

A feature article about the endeavour, written by Laurel Oldach, was published in ASBMB-Today: http://www.asbmb.org/asbmbtoday/201905/Features/Lipidomics/

Click here for the pdf version.

For more info, please Dr Anne K. Bendt at anne.bendt@nus.edu.sg.