Our Expert Team

With over 150 years of experience in the field of metabolomics, our highly experienced team provide outstanding metabolomics consultancy services

The Phenome Centre Birmingham is a research consultancy service with core academic drivers. This approach enables our staff to be pioneers and contribute towards novel and innovative approaches and discoveries.

Highlights

Our team are heavily involved in the Metabolomics Society, with several undertaking leadership positions, such as President (Viant, 2012-13), Director (Viant, 2008-15, Weber 2019-Current), and a Lifetime Honorary Fellowship (Viant). Our team founded and developed the society's Early-career Members Network (EMN), supporting researchers new to the field (Viant, Weber), and we work with our colleagues and peers to address barriers in metabolomics and supporting development and growth in the field through Metabolomics Society task groups, in areas such as Model Organism Metabolomes (Viant - Chair), Data Standards (Viant - Member), and Data Quality (Viant - Member).

More broadly, we work with academic, industry and government institutions to develop best practice in metabolomics, such as the OECD group Metabolomics Reporting Framework (MRF) (Viant - Chair) which aims to establish standards for reporting toxicological metabolomics, and represent the field at high-level international groups such as the OECD Expert Advisory Group on Molecular Screening and Toxicogenomics (EAGMST) (Viant).

Management Team

  • Headshot of Professor Mark Viant

    Professor Mark Viant

    Executive Director

    Professor Mark Viant obtained a PhD in Chemical Physics and conducted postdoctoral research at the University of California Berkeley (UCB) and Davis (UCD) before joining the University of Birmingham in 2003. Since then he has built a large metabolomics research programme, focused on the development and application of metabolomics to toxicology. He is a Professor of Metabolomics and Executive Director of Phenome Centre Birmingham since its opening in 2016. Mark has co-authored over 200 publications and his work has been recognised by the award of a Lifetime Honorary Fellowship of the International Metabolomics Society.

    View Professor Viant's profile
  • Headshot of Dr Ralf Weber

    Dr Ralf Weber

    Director of Bioinformatics

    Dr Ralf Weber is an Assistant Professor and Director of Bioinformatics at the Phenome Centre Birmingham (PCB). He leads a research team focused on developing and applying data processing, biostatistics, and data mining tools to enhance the biochemical annotation and interpretation of clinical and toxicological metabolomics data. Ralf obtained his PhD in computational mass spectrometry-based metabolomics at the University of Birmingham in 2010, and has held various subsequent research and teaching roles. Ralf is co-founder of the Birmingham Metabolomics Training Centre, and an active board member of the international Metabolomics Society.

    View Dr Weber's profile
  • Headshot of Dr Andy Southam

    Dr Andy Southam

    Director of Mass Spectrometry

    Dr Andy Southam pioneered the development of the direct infusion mass spectrometry spectral-stitching method as part of his PhD at the University of Birmingham (awarded in 2009). During this time he developed an interest in applying untargeted metabolomics to understand liver cancer metabolism and continued this research as a post-doctoral research fellow in Professor Chris Bunce’s research group. Andy joined the Phenome Centre as an Experimental Officer in Metabolomics and Lipidomics in 2017, and became our Director of Mass Spectrometry in 2023.

  • Headshot of David Epps

    David Epps

    Business Manager

    David is a Business Manager working alongside the scientific team providing strategic facility management. David supports with project workflows, operations, and overall financial management, and is responsible for ensuring a high-quality experience for Phenome Centre Birmingham customers.

    David is a PRINCE2® Practitioner and current MBA candidate, with nearly a decade's experience providing higher education administration and management, and joined the PCB team in 2017.

  • voros-eszter

    Eszter Voros

    Finance and Administration Officer

    Eszter is a dedicated and skilled Finance and Administration Officer, playing a key role in managing the daily operations at the Phenome Centre Birmingham. Her diverse responsibilities encompass project administration, human resources, finance, accounting, procurement, invoicing, and contract management, ensuring smooth and efficient administrative support across all areas.

Analytical Team

  • Photo of Dr Teng Meng

    Teng Meng

    Experimental Officer in Metabolomics

    Dr. Teng Meng obtained her PhD from Queen's University Belfast, where she employed opportunistic dried blood spot (DBS) sampling integrated with population pharmacokinetic modeling to elucidate the population pharmacokinetics of critically important antibiotics in neonatal populations. Following her PhD, she continued her research as a post-doctoral research fellow, from there she headed on the role of DMPK Manager at Ascentawits Pharmaceuticals Ltd.

    Teng joined the PCB team in 2024 as an Experimental Officer in Metabolomics.

  • Self portrait photo of Lauren Cruchley-Fuge

    Lauren Cruchley-Fuge

    Research Associate

    Lauren obtained a BSc in Forensic Science in 2019 at the University of South Wales. Following her graduation, she acquired experience as a Laboratory Analyst in the private sector of Forensic Toxicology, collaborating with HM Coroner and UK Police forces to ascertain toxicological causes of death through a diverse range of laboratory testing methods.

    Lauren joined the PCB team in 2023 as a Research Associate, where she now focuses on the implementation of automated sample preparation techniques in the field of Metabolomics.

Data Processing & Biostatistics

  • Headshot of Dr Gavin Lloyd

    Dr Gavin Lloyd

    Experimental Officer in Biostatistics

    Dr Gavin Lloyd obtained his PhD in 2009 at the University of Bristol, on the development of chemometrics and pattern recognition techniques for multivariate datasets. Following his PhD, he worked at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital developing chemometric routines to process vibrational spectroscopy data in cancer diagnostics. Gavin joined the PCB team in 2017 as an Experimental Officer in Biostatistics.

  • Headshot of Ossama Edbali

    Ossama Edbali

    Experimental Officer in Data Processing

    Ossama Edbali obtained an MSci in Computer Science at the University of Birmingham (2018) with a focus on programming language theory and verification systems. He then worked as a software engineer at UCAS and in 2022 joined the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), developing and maintaining its multi-repository search system. During this time he completed an MSc in Bioinformatics at the University of Birmingham focusing on the development of a real-time framework for monitoring and quality control of LC-MS-based metabolomics data.

    Ossama joined the PCB team in 2024 as an Experimental Officer in Computational Metabolomics.

Contact us

Email us today and one of our experts will get in touch to discuss your metabolomics project