Bioenergetics approach attracts wider industry interest

A new service, announced by University of Birmingham Enterprise, will include the use of real-time metabolic profiling of cells from healthy and disease populations or models, to assess how living cells produce, transform and store energy.

Biocell Energetics, founded by Dr Jonathan Barlow, Scientific Research Director at Birmingham’s Cellular Health and Metabolism Facility at the College of Life and Environmental Sciences, also provides metabolic phenotyping and quality control testing for cryopreserved and isolated cells, real-time mitochondrial toxicity screening and consultation on study design, data analysis and interpretation.

Dr Barlow has high-level expertise in techniques that reveal when cells switch between energy-producing pathways and the effect of exercise on metabolic processes and factors that can affect energy metabolism.

“The bioenergetics approach is relevant to studying many cell types, and disease states including the metabolic changes in diabetes and obesity.  The service has contributed to recently published studies in heart disease, immunology and cancer, cardiology and immunology, in addition to basic research.”

He is also planning a workstream in elite sports, to help athletes optimise their performance by exploring how their cells generate and use energy, unlocking insights into how they respond to training and injury.  He expects this work to result in an R&D platform to identify novel biomarkers for predictors of inflammation, immunosuppression and metabolic health and fitness.

Initially attracting attention from drug discovery and therapeutics companies, there is growing interest in this approach from researchers working for tissue banks, companies producing cell culture media for cultivated meats and from the environmental testing sector, particularly for examining the effects of household pollutants on aquatic life.

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