Executive Summary

Contractors Involved (for the duration of the project)

Partic. No.	Participant name	Participant short name	Address	Country
1	Gerrit van Meer	UU-CBLE	Utrecht University	NL
2	Gerd Schmitz	UniReg	University Hospital Regensburg	D
3	Kai Simons	MPI-CBG	MPI-CBG, Dresden	D
4	Jürgen Borlak	Fh-ITEM	ITEM, Hannover	D
5	Raymond Dwek	OGBI	Oxford University	UK
6	Pam Fredman	UGOT	Göteborg University	S
7	Felix Goñi	UPV-EHU	University of the Basque Country, Leioa	E
8	Elina Ikonen	UniHsk	University of Helsinki	FIN
9	Michel Lagarde	INSERM	INSA Lyon	F
10	Konrad Sandhoff	KI	University of Bonn	D
11	Balázs Sarkadi	NMC	National Medical Center, Budapest	HU
12	Fritz Spener Sepp Kohlwein	UniGraz	University of Graz	A
13	Sandro Sonnino	UniMi	University of Milano	I
14	Gerd Utermann	IMBHG	Medical University Innsbruck	A

Co-ordinator: Prof.dr. Gerrit van Meer

Bijvoet Center T: +31-30-253.3427

Utrecht University E: [e-mail]

Padualaan 8

3453 CH Utrecht

Project manager: Dr. Bas R. Leeflang

Bijvoet Center T: +31-30-253.3498

Utrecht University E: [e-mail]

Padualaan 8

3453 CH Utrecht

Project website: www.lipidomics.net

Lipidomics Expretise Platform: www.lipidomics-expertise.de
Work Performed and End Results
Expertise Platform and the inventory of stakeholders (Objectives 1 and 4).

The Lipidomics Expertise Platform was launched on the internet in November 2005. The database was used to prepare a survey of the lipidomics expertise and infrastructure in Europe. A database containing 2,500 active e-mail addresses was used to mobilize lipidologists for the concluding ELIfe meeting. Scientists from industry were specifically invited for the first workshop (Dresden, 2005) focusing on lipidomics technology, which led to the exchange of ideas on technological possibilities versus the needs of the scientists in the field.

Contacts were established between ELIfe and related initiatives in the US (LipidMAPS) and Japan (LipidBank). As a first collaborative step, a common lipid classification scheme has been devised and published [1-3]. In this context, professors Spener and van Meer were invited to become members of the International Lipid Classification and Nomenclature Committee (ILCNC), which has taken on the task of updating and expanding the classification system. The committee concluded its first meeting on July 7, 2006, with a list of recommendations in the light of a continuously evolving inventory of biological lipid structures.
Lipidomics versus genomics/proteomics and the need for bioinformatics (Objective 2).

Genomics, proteomics and metabolomics experts were invited to present their points of view at the ELIfe kick-off meeting. The recognized need for specific bioinformatics approaches was then addressed by inviting the lipid MAPS experts for the first technology workshop in Dresden, and subsequently by active participation of ELIfe members (with LipidMAPS representatives) in an extra workshop at the European Bioinformatics Institute in Hinxton that concentrated on connectivity between different types of databases, the willingness of EBI to provide the physical storage space for lipid databases, and the curation of existing databases. This resulted in the involvement of EBI experts in the later ELIfe-based FP7 lipidomics application LipidomicNet.