Abstract 4238: COnsortium for METabolomics Studies (COMETS): leveraging resources to accelerate scientific discovery

Metabolomics is a systems approach to the biology of health and disease and an ‘-omics’ discipline that measures small metabolites representing end products of a variety of metabolic and cellular processes as reflected in available biological specimens (e.g. blood, urine, saliva, feces and tissue). As an increasingly more common approach used for epidemiologic and clinical studies, metabolomics has the potential to improve disease risk assessment, screening, diagnosis, prognosis and predictive response to therapy, as well as provide disease mechanistic insight and help to establish criteria for causation. It is timely to establish mechanisms for leveraging existing resources and data for novel biomarker discovery using metabolomics approaches. To this end, the National Institutes of Health COnsortium of METabolomics Studies (COMETS) was established in 2014 (http://epi.grants.cancer.gov/comets/), and currently includes 34 prospective cohorts and 2 consortia from the United States, Europe, Asia and South America. The COMETS mission is to promote collaborations among prospective cohort studies that follow participants for a range of outcomes and perform metabolomic profiling of individuals. COMETS aims to facilitate an open exchange of ideas, knowledge, and results to accelerate a shared goal of identifying metabolomic profiles associated with chronic disease phenotypes (e.g. heart disease, diabetes, cancer). The structure of COMETS includes a steering committee with one representative from each participating cohort/consortium and a number of working groups, including age analysis, data harmonization, statistics, and trainee. In November 2016, COMETS held their inaugural scientific meeting. As a result of this meeting, more working groups are currently being established to support additional interests/projects among the consortium members. Here we further describe the COMETS structure, including preliminary descriptive data, which aims to advance the use and impact of metabolite profiling in population-based research. Citation Format: Rachael Z. Stolzenberg-Solomon, Steven Moore, Crnelia Ulrich, Elizabeth Poole, Marinella Temprosa, Mukesh Verma, Demetrius Albanes, Clara Barrios Barrera, Eric Boerwinkle, Juan P. Casas, Clary Clish, Robert Gerszten, Christian Gieger, Marc Gunter, Sei Harada, Tamara Harris, David Herrington, Ann Hsing, Mattias Johannson, Claudia Langenberg, Jessica Lasky-Su, Loic Le Marchand, Charles Matthews, Cristina Menni, Matej Oresic, Eric Orwoll, Alexandre Pereira, Kathyrn Rexrode, Svati Shah, Xiao-ou Shu, Victoria Stevens, Bing Yu, Hua Zhao, Krista Zanetti. COnsortium for METabolomics Studies (COMETS): leveraging resources to accelerate scientific discovery [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 4238. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-4238