2008.07.16
Mr. Sullivan(Agilent Technologies Inc. CEO) visited our laboratory

Mr. Bill Sullivan, Agilent Technologies Inc. CEO, and Mr. Minoru Ebihara, Agilent Technologies Japan, Ltd. President, visited our laboratory and Institute for Advanced Biosciences, Keio on June 27th.

They viewed laboratories with many CE-TOFMSs made by Agilent Technologies Inc. and we discussed how to expand the CE-TOF MS analytical techniques onto the world stage.


Both two presidents looked very satisfied as they find their products crammed side by side.

2008.06.18
HMT will be participating in Metabolomics 2008 (9/2-6, Boston, Massachusetts)

We are official sponsor of Metabolomics 2008.

HMT will be participating in Metabolomics 2008, Metabolomics Society's 4th Annual International Conference, in Boston, Massachusetts, scheduled for September 2-6, 2008. The expo will be held at Boston Park Plaza Hotel.

Yoshiaki Ohashi, Manager of medical group, will give oral presentation.
6th September Session2:High Resolution Chromatography-coupled Techniques
Depicting Large-Scale Metabolome Map of Histidine-Starved Escherichia coli by CE-TOFMS


Program：
WORKSHOPS
2nd September
Session 1: Mass Spectrometry ‘Principles and Pitfalls’
Session 2: Mass Spectrometry ‘Standardized Libraries’
3rd September
Session 1: Informatics and Statistics ‘Principles and Pitfalls’
Session 2: Informatics and Statistics ‘Good Practice’
Session 3: NMR ‘Principles and Pitfalls’
Session 4: Sample Preparation

MAIN CONFERENCE
3rd September
Session 1: Keynote Lectures ‘Metabolism: The Grand View’
4th September
Session 1: Cancer Preclinical and Clinical Research
Session 2: Spatially Resolved Metabolite Imaging and Flux Analysis
Session 3: Nutrition and Epidemiology
Session 4: Cardiovascular Disease
5th September
Session 1: Diseases of the Central Nervous System
Session 2: Databases and Metabolite Identification
Session 3: Diabetes
Session 4: Networks and Pathways
6th September
Session 1: Hot Topics in Microbial and Biomedical Metabolomics
Session 2: High Resolution Chromatography-coupled Techniques
Session 3: Drug Discovery and Drug Development
Session 4: Systems Biology


We look forward to seeing you in Boston.

We will keep this page updated as needed.

2008.06.11
HMT will be participating in the 5th International Conference on Plant Metabolomics (7/15-18, Yokohama, Japan)

HMT will be participating in the 5th International Conference on Plant Metabolomics in Yokohama, Japan, scheduled for July 15-18, 2008. The conference will be held at PACIFICO YOKOHAMA Annex Hall.

Our Booth is number 8 in Foyer.

We look forward to seeing you in Yokohama.

2008.05.07
HMT report the proteome-wide mapping of in vivo phosphorylation sites in Arabidopsis

Naoyuki Sugiyama, the researcher of HMT, has published a scientific paper in Molecular Systems Biology, entitled "Large-scale phosphorylation mapping reveals the extent of tyrosine phosphorylation in Arabidopsis". This is a collaborative research with Institute for Advanced Biosciences, Keio University, RIKEN Plant Science Center and HMT.

Protein phosphorylation regulates a wide range of cellular processes. Here, we report the proteome-wide mapping of in vivo phosphorylation sites in Arabidopsis by using complementary phosphopeptide enrichment techniques coupled with high-accuracy mass spectrometry. Using unfractionated whole cell lysates of Arabidopsis, we identified 2597 phosphopeptides with 2172 high-confidence, unique phosphorylation sites from 1346 proteins. The distribution of phosphoserine, phosphothreonine, and phosphotyrosine sites was 85.0, 10.7, and 4.3% . Although typical tyrosine-specific protein kinases are absent in Arabidopsis, the proportion of phosphotyrosines among the phospho-residues in Arabidopsis is similar to that in humans, where over 90 tyrosine-specific protein kinases have been identified. In addition, the tyrosine phosphoproteome shows features distinct from those of the serine and threonine phosphoproteomes. Taken together, we highlight the extent and contribution of tyrosine phosphorylation in plants.

[Molecular Systems Biology website]

[Published Papers]

2008.01.18
Appointment of President and Chairman of the Board

Human Metabolome Technologies, Inc. announces its appointment of President and Chairman of the Board as described below.

This appointment is dependent on a resolution of the board meeting following the extraordinary meeting of shareholders to be held on Friday, February 1st, 2008.

1. President:
　　　　　Ryuji Kanno

2. Chairman of the Board:
　　　　　Yoshihiro Ohtaki (President)

*Title in parenthesis indicates current position

Brief Personal History
　Name: Ryuji Kanno
　Place of Birth: Akita Prefecture, Japan
　Experience:
　1973　Graduated from the faculty of engineering, Tokyo University of Science
　1974　Joined Yokogawa Hewlett-Packard Ltd.
　1984　Transferred　to Yokogawa Electric Corporation
　1992　Transferred to the senior sales director, Yokogawa Analytical Systems, Inc.
　1996　Division Director
　1997　Executive Director of Operations
　1999　President and Division Director
　2006　President and General Manager, Sales Division
　2007　Executive Vice President　and General Manager, Life Sciences and Chemical Analysis, Agilent Technologies Japan, Ltd.

2007.12.26
HMT published the largest metabolome map on record providing new insights in bacterial stringent response

Human Metabolome Technologies, Inc. (HMT) has published a scientific paper in the journal of Royal Society of Chemistry, Molecular Biosystems, entitled "Depiction of metabolome change in histidine-starved Escherichia coli by CE-TOFMS".

"Stringent response" is known to be induced by amino acid starvation in E. coli, which is the pleiotropic effect including inhibition of cell division, chromosome replication, and gene expression. Prior to the metabolome analysis, research team in HMT and Keio University led by Professor Tomoyoshi Soga prepared an E. coli metabolome list of 727 metabolites reported in literature. Of the primary metabolismsmetabolites, 453 metabolites are classified in primary metabolisms, and most of them are expected to be detected by CE-TOFMS provided by HMT. The metabolome analysis of E. colicells grown in histidine-starved conditions provided quantitative data of 198 metabolites and large-scale metabolome map. The activation of histidine biosynthesis pathway, featured behavior in glycolysis and the TCA cycle, and inhibition of cell wall synthesis were unveiled by the analysis, suggesting that metabolome profiling should provide new insights into bacterial adaptation to environmental changes.


[Molecular Biosystems website].
The February issue of Molecular Biosystems will carry this article.
[Published Papers]

2007.06.08
HMT discovered mechanisms responsible for population heterogeneity in sporulation of Bacillus subtilis

Tokyo-June 7, 2007
- Human Metabolome Technologies, Inc. (HMT), a leading metabolomics company, today announced a scientific publication in the Journal of Biochemistry entitled "Model based definition of populationheterogeneity and its effects on metabolism in sporulating Bacillus subtilis" that describe mechanisms responsible for generating theheterogeneity of Bacillus subtilis. [journal website]

Bacillus subtilis forms dormant, robust spores as a tactic to ensure survival under conditions of starvation. However, the sporulating culture includes sporulating and non-sporulating cells, because a portion of the cell population initiates porulation in wild-type strain. A research team led by Dr. Yoshiaki Ohashi (Manager, Biomedical Group in HMT) first built a mathematical model and simulated for signal transduction of the sporulation to see what mechanisms are responsible for generating the population heterogeneity. The simulated results were confirmed experimentally, where heterogeneity is primarily modulated by negative feedback circuits, resulting in generation of a bistable response within the sporulating culture. The team also confirmed that mutants relevant to negative feedback yield either sporulating or non-sporulating subpopulations.

To see the effect of molecular mechanism between sporulating and non-sporulating cells in distinct manner, metabolome analysis was conducted for the above mutants using Agilent-HMT CE-TOFMS Metabolomics Solution, an integrated set of metabolome analysis tools. The metabolic profiles exhibited distinct characteristics with time regardless of whether sporulation was initiated or not. In addition, several distinct characteristics of metabolites were observed between strains, which was inconsistent with previously reported data. The results indicates that careful consideration must be made in the interpretation of omics-data obtained from cells yielding population heterogeneity.

This is the first time that mechanisms responsible for the population heterogeneity has been identified and experimentally validated. HMT promotes greater investment in the research and development of our metabolomics platform.

About CE-TOFMS Metabolomics Solution
Contact Business Development

2007.05.16
HMT will present two poster presentations at the 3rd Metabolomics Society Annual Meeting (6/11-14, Manchester, UK)

HMT will present two poster presentations at the 3rd Metabolomics Society Annual Meeting (6/11-14, Manchester, UK).

* Capillary electrophoresis mass Spectrometry in metabolomics
* P-BOSS: A new filtering method for treasure hunting in metabolomics

Contact
Haruyuki Ohkishi, Ph.D.
Exective Vice President, Business Development
Human Metabolome Technologies, Inc.

2007.05.16
HMT will give presentation at the 6th International Bio EXPO Japan (6/21, Tokyo)

HMT will give presentation at the 6th International BIO EXPO Japan.

Dates: 6/20-6/22, 2007
Place: Tokyo Big Sight

Booth: Bioventure zone (51-45)

Presentation: Metabolome analysis and biomarker search (in Japanese)
6/21 15:00～15:20 VEN-2

Contact
Haruyuki Ohkishi, Ph.D.
Executive Vice President, Business Development
Human Metabolome Technologies, Inc.

2007.04.27
HMT technology successfully revealed robustness of bacterial metabolic networks as published in Science

Scientists led by Prof. Masaru Tomita (Director of Human Metabolome Technologies) at the Institute for Advanced Biosciences of Keio University, report in Science, a first-of-a-kind quantitative picture of molecular components of the common intestinal bacterium E. coli. The paper, titled “Multiple High-Throughput Analyses Monitor the Response of E. coli to Perturbations”, has appeared in the April 27 issue of Science, a leading journal of original scientific research [link to journal website]. Using multiple state-of-art analytical technologies, the group studied this unicellular organism at an unprecedented depth to reveal the remarkable overall robustness of its metabolic network to gene deletion and changes in growth conditions.

Making use of a set of nearly 4000 single gene mutants in E. coli the same group previously developed (known as Keio collection), the researchers selected a subset of specific genes whose activity is known to be associated with the main reactions of central energy metabolism. In addition, the non-mutated or wild type cells were also grown at different rates to observe the response to such changes. An exhaustive global survey of intracellular components was then performed using the latest analytical technologies such as capillary electrophoresis mass spectrometry (CE-MS), shotgun proteomics and DNA microarrays to quantify metabolites, proteins and mRNAs. These "multi-ome" data were integrated and the metabolic fluxes through most reactions were derived by a computational model of energy metabolism.

Deletion of energy metabolism genes, in most cases, did not result in large compensatory changes in the level of RNAs, proteins, or metabolites. On the other hand, while significant changes in RNA and protein levels were seen upon changes in growth rate, the overall metabolite levels remained stable. The results thus demonstrate with a level of details until now never achieved, that E. coli can use different and complementary strategies to maintain a stable metabolic state, according to the circumstances, and also compensate for mutations through functional redundancy in its metabolic network.

The CE-MS methods and original analysis software developed at HMT, which allow to analyze hundreds of intracellular metabolites simultaneously were instrumental in providing the level of quantitative detail necessary for this study. Dr. Naoyuki Sugiyama (Researcher at Biomedical Group, HMT), who is one of the authors, developed original approach for targeted protein quantification using liquid-chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS) that bypasses the common but inconvenient use of isotopic labels, and contributed a great deal to this research project. This research shows advanced performance of our CE-TOFMS based metabolomics platform. We are promoting greater investment in the research and development of our metabolomics technologies and closer collaboration with other omics, such as proteomics and transcriptomics.

2007.04.04
Publications updated (J. Chromatography A)

Our work has been accepted as following paper:

Morohashi, M., Shimizu, K., Ohashi, Y., Abe, J., Mori, H., Tomita, M., and Soga, T.
P-BOSS: A new filtering method for treasure hunting in metabolomics.
J. Chromatography A. In press.

2007.01.24
Added link to new site of Prof. Soga

We have added web link to Tomoyoshi Soga (Director of HMT, and Professor of Institute for Advanced Bioscienes, Keio University)
The website has just opened.
You can follow the link from here or from our Management Team page.

2006.12.05
Publication updated (J. Proteome Res.)

Our work has been published on J. Proteome Res. as below.

Shinoda, K., Sugimoto, M., Yachie, N., Sugiyama, N., Masuda, T., Robert, M., Soga, T., and Tomita, M.
Prediction of Liquid Chromatographic Retention Times of Peptides Generated by Protease Digestion of the Escherichia coli Proteome Using Artificial Neural Networks.
J. Proteome Res. 5:3312-3317, 2006.

2005.09.14
HMT and Chugai Pharmaceutical collaborate on biomarker search in connection with liver and kidney diseases

Download PDF(66.3KB)

TOKYO, Sep 14, 2005 - Human Metabolome Technologies, Inc. (hereafter referred to as HMT; Representative Director and President: Yoshihiro Ohtaki; Head Office: Tsuruoka, Yamagata) and Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (hereafter referred to as Chugai Pharmaceutical; Representative Director and President: Osamu Nagayama; Head Office: Chuo-ku, Tokyo) announced that they have signed an agreement to collaborate on the search of biomarkers in connection with liver and kidney diseases.

HMT is a Japanese bioventure established in July 2003 as a spin-out from the Department of Environmental Information and the Institute for Advanced Biosciences at Keio University. HMT’s core technologies are based on the work of its founders, Professor Masaru Tomita and Assistant Professor Tomoyoshi Soga.

Based on this agreement, both companies will conduct a search for biomarkers in connection with hepatic (liver) diseases and kidney diseases, by utilizing the remarkable metabolome analysis technologies developed by HMT. "Metabolomics is one of the cutting edge technoloiges in life sciences, and HMT has developed a particularly excellent analysis technology in this field. Although the application of metabolomics in drug discovery has just begun, we are expecting the discovery of undiscovered biomarkers by using this robust technology provided by HMT,” comments Chugai Pharmaceutical Vice President, General Manager of Research Division Dr. Tatsuo Miyuauchi. "The advanced technology developed in Yamagata Prefecture is to be applied full-scale to the pharmaceutical industry. HMT regards the development of drug design support technology by using metabolome analysis as an important pillar in its business, and when combined with Chugai Pharmaceutical’s drug discovery expertise, we believe in the creation of an innovative drug discovery engine. Through this collaboration, the development of the metabolome analysis technology by HMT will be further advanced and made more substantial," said Professor Masaru Tomita, Director of HMT.

2005.06.20
HMT and Agilent Technologies Collaborate on Metabolomics Solution to Speed Disease and Drug Research

HMT and Agilent Technologies Collaborate on Metabolomics Solution to Speed Disease and Drug Research
Download PDF(140.2KB)

2005.06.19
1. HMT wins first prize in Biotech business competition

Yamagata Japan - Apr 18 2005 - Human Metabolome Technologies (HMT), an innovative metabolomics provider, today announced that HMT and Keio University won first prize in Japan Biotechnology Business Competition.

» Read More

2005.06.19
2. HMT collaborates on biomarker study with Mitsubushi Pharma

Yamagata Japan - Feb 14 2005 - Human Metabolome Technologies (HMT) an innovative metabolomics provider, today announced its collaboration with Mitsubishi Pharma Corporation (MPC) on a new biomarker study for phospholipidosis.

» Read More

2005.06.19
3. HMT collaborates on metabolome analysis in microbes with Ajinomoto

Yamagata Japan - Jun 11 2004 - HMT has started the collaboration with Ajinomoto Co. Inc..(Head Office: Chuo-ku Tokyo President: Kunio Egashira)

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2005.06.19
4. HMT collaborates on metabolome analysis in microbes with Mizkan

Yamagata Japan - Jan 16 2004 - HMT has started the collaboration with Mizkan Group Corporation.

» Read More

2005.06.19
5. A new bioventure Human Metabolome Technologies spins out from Keio University

Yamagata Japan - Jul 7 2003 - A new bioventure Human Metabolome Technologies (HMT) was established as a spin out from Keio University.

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