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University of Alberta's David Wishart wins top Canadian science prize

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  Published in Science and Technology on Thursday, October 30th 2025 at 7:55 GMT by The Globe and Mail
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David Wishart of the University of Alberta has become a household name in the world of metabolomics, a discipline that seeks to catalogue the complete set of small molecules—metabolites—present in a biological system. His story, chronicled in the Globe and Mail, is one of relentless curiosity, innovative technology, and a legacy that echoes the work of Gerhard Herzberg, the Nobel‑prize‑winning physicist who once taught at the same campus. The article traces Wishart’s journey from a chemistry graduate student in the 1970s to the head of a research program that now feeds data into thousands of clinical studies worldwide, all while situating his achievements within the broader scientific heritage of Alberta.

Wishart’s entry into metabolomics began not with a single breakthrough, but with a series of incremental steps. He earned his Ph.D. in pharmaceutical chemistry at the University of Alberta in the early 1980s, a time when mass spectrometry was becoming a more powerful tool for analyzing complex biological samples. His early work focused on drug discovery, but it soon became apparent that the same analytical techniques could be applied to the thousands of endogenous molecules that give a cell its metabolic fingerprint. In 1997, he founded the Metabolomics and Metabolite Research Group, which eventually grew into one of the world’s largest metabolite databases, METLIN. The database, which contains over 70,000 annotated metabolites, has become indispensable to researchers seeking to identify unknown compounds in high‑throughput mass spectrometry data.

Central to Wishart’s success is his belief in the democratization of data. The Globe and Mail article highlights how his group has turned the often opaque world of metabolite identification into an open, collaborative enterprise. By providing free access to METLIN, Wishart has enabled scientists—from computational biologists to clinicians—to interpret metabolomic profiles without needing specialized chemistry training. The article points out that this openness has accelerated the adoption of metabolomics in disease research, including oncology, neurodegeneration, and infectious disease.

The piece also delves into Wishart’s role as an educator and mentor. He has supervised more than 30 Ph.D. students and has collaborated with faculty across the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, the Faculty of Engineering, and the Institute for Advanced Studies. The author notes that Wishart’s multidisciplinary approach reflects the spirit of Gerhard Herzberg, whose work in quantum spectroscopy laid the groundwork for modern analytical chemistry. Herzberg, who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1971, was a visiting professor at Alberta in the 1960s and later became the dean of the Faculty of Science. His insistence on rigorous experimental design and his ability to translate complex physical theories into practical laboratory techniques have influenced generations of researchers, including Wishart.

A particularly striking portion of the article is the recounting of Wishart’s collaboration with the Alberta Centre for Metabolomics (ACM), a joint venture between the university, the provincial government, and industry partners. The centre’s mandate is to integrate metabolomics with genomics and proteomics, creating a “multi‑omics” platform for personalized medicine. Wishart’s group has contributed the analytical backbone of this platform, providing both the mass spectrometry protocols and the computational pipelines that convert raw spectra into clinically actionable insights.

The Globe and Mail piece does not shy away from the challenges that come with such expansive data generation. Wishart himself is quoted discussing the “curse of dimensionality” that plagues metabolomic datasets—hundreds of variables measured in a few dozen samples—and the need for sophisticated statistical models to tease out biologically meaningful patterns. The article references recent collaborations with machine‑learning experts at the university’s School of Computing, who are helping to build predictive models for disease risk based on metabolic signatures.

Looking ahead, Wishart is optimistic about the next frontiers in metabolomics. The article outlines his interest in single‑cell metabolomics, an emerging field that aims to capture metabolic heterogeneity within tissues. He also mentions the potential of integrating metabolomics with spatial transcriptomics, which would map metabolic activity to specific cellular neighborhoods in a tissue. These ventures, the author notes, will require even larger datasets and more powerful computational resources—both of which are on the horizon at Alberta.

In sum, the Globe and Mail article paints a portrait of David Wishart as a bridge between the foundational physics championed by Gerhard Herzberg and the data‑driven biology that defines the 21st century. His career demonstrates how meticulous experimental work, coupled with a commitment to open science, can transform a niche field into a cornerstone of modern medical research. The legacy of both Wishart and Herzberg, therefore, lives on not only in their publications but in the countless scientists who now have at their fingertips the tools to decode the chemical language of life.