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The Rowett Institute

Professor Jules Griffin

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Professor Jules Griffin
Professor Jules Griffin
Professor Jules Griffin

Director of the Rowett Institute

Accepting PhDs

About
Email Address
jules.griffin@abdn.ac.uk
Telephone Number
+44 (0)1224 438663
School/Department
School of Medicine, Medical Sciences and Nutrition

Biography

My research focuses on the application of analytical chemistry to study metabolism at a global level in metabolic diseases. We have developed and applied metabolomics and lipidomics tools to investigate aspects of the metabolic syndrome and how nutrition interacts with health across the life course. This has included studies based on cell culture, model organisms, human diet intervention studies and epidemiology. At the centre of this research has been a desire to understand why fat metabolism can be so detrimental to the cell.    

I received my D.Phil. in Biochemistry from the University of Oxford, where I used 13C NMR spectroscopy to study metabolism in the brain. My first Post-doctoral position applied similar approaches to study cardiac metabolism at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. Returning to the UK I took up a second post-doctoral position at Imperial College London, joining during the early stages of the development of metabolomics/metabonomics. Here, I applied these new omic tools to understanding how fat metabolism impairs cell function and have been studying this subject ever since.

I was awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship and set up my own research group at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge in 2002. In 2011, I took up a joint position with MRC Human Nutrition Research and the University of Cambridge as a programme leader. This was a transformative appointment, allowing my group to move our focus from model systems into human nutrition and experimental medicine. We also developed a number of high throughput metabolomics and lipidomics tools for cohort studies to examine the metabolic syndrome. In 2019 I took up the Chair of Biological Chemistry at Imperial College London, joining the Imperial College Dementia Research Institute to study the contribution of lipid metabolism to neurodegenerative diseases. In July 2021 I joined the Rowett Institute, University of Aberdeen as Director.

Memberships and Affiliations

Internal Memberships

Member of Aberdeen Cardiovascular and Diabetes Centre

Member of the Rowett Institute EDIT Committee

Chair of the Rowett Institute Executive Committee

External Memberships

Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Director and Secretary to the Metabolic Profiling Forum (metabomeeting).

Editorial board member for Genome Medicine and Metabolites. 

Former President of the Metabolomics Society (2016-2020).

Latest Publications

  • MEATiCode: A comprehensive proteomic LC-MS/MS method for simultaneous species identification in meat authentication

    Duft, R. G., Griffin, J. L., Stead, D. A.
    Food Chemistry, vol. 483, pp. 144231
    Contributions to Journals: Articles

  • Diverse oncogenes use common mechanisms to drive growth of major forms of human cancer

    Kauko, O., Turunen, M., Pihlajamaa, P., Häkkinen, A., Queiroz, R. M. L., Pääkkönen, M., Ventelä, S., Gaetani, M., Lundström, S. L., Murgia, A., Sahu, B., Routila, J., Wei, G., Irjala, H., Griffin, J. L., Lilley, K. S., Kivioja, T., Hautaniemi, S., Taipale, J.
    Science Advances, vol. 11, no. 34, eadt1798
    Contributions to Journals: Articles

  • Technical recommendations for analyzing oxylipins by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry

    Schebb, N. H., Kampschulte, N., Hagn, G., Plitzko, K., Meckelmann, S. W., Ghosh, S., Joshi, R., Kuligowski, J., Vuckovic, D., Botana, M. T., Sánchez-Illana, ?., Zandkarimi, F., Das, A., Yang, J., Schmidt, L., Checa, A., Roche, H. M., Armando, A. M., Edin, M. L., Lih, F. B., Aristizabal-Henao, J. J., Miyamoto, S., Giuffrida, F., Moussaieff, A., Domingues, R., Rothe, M., Hinz, C., Das, U. S., Rund, K. M., Taha, A. Y., Hofstetter, R. K., Werner, M., Werz, O., Kahnt, A. S., Bertrand-Michel, J., Le Faouder, P., Gurke, R., Thomas, D., Torta, F., Milic, I., Dias, I. H., Spickett, C. M., Biagini, D., Lomonaco, T., Idborg, H., Liu, J. Y., Fedorova, M., Ford, D. A., Barden, A., Mori, T. A., Kennedy, P. D., Maxey, K., Ivanisevic, J., Gallart-Ayala, H., Gladine, C., Wenk, M., Galano, J. M., Durand, T., Stark, K. D., Barbas, C., Garscha, U., Gelhaus, S. L., Ceglarek, U., Flamand, N., Griffin, J. L., Ahrends, R., Arita, M., Zeldin, D. C., Schopfer, F. J., Quehenberger, O., Julian, R., Nicolaou, A., Blair, I. A., Murphy, M. P., Hammock, B. D., Freeman, B., Liebisch, G., Serhan, C. N., Köfeler, H. C., Jakobsson, P. J., Steinhilber, D., Gelb, M. H., Holčapek, M., Andrew, R., Giera, M., FitzGerald, G. A., Murphy, R. C., Newman, J. W., Dennis, E. A., Ekroos, K., Milne, G. L., Gijón, M. A., Vesper, H. W., Wheelock, C. E., O'Donnell, V. B.
    Science Signaling, vol. 18, no. 887, pp. eadw1245
    Contributions to Journals: Articles

  • The Yeast Gsk-3 Kinase Mck1 Is Necessary for Cell Wall Remodeling in Glucose-Starved and Cell Wall-Stressed Cells

    Zhang, F., Tang, Y., Zhou, H., Li, K., West, J. A., Griffin, J., Lilley, K. S., Zhang, N.
    International Journal of Molecular Sciences, vol. 26, no. 8, 3534
    Contributions to Journals: Articles

  • Response to Letter to the Editor from Chen and Shan: "Moderate-intensity Combined Training Induces Lipidomic Changes in Individuals with Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes"

    Duft, R. G., Bonfante, I. L. P., Palma-Duran, S. A., Chacon-Mikahil, M. P. T., Griffin, J. L., Cavaglieri, C. R.
    Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, vol. 110, no. 3, pp. e912–e913
    Contributions to Journals: Comments and Debates

View My Publications

Prizes and Awards

Trapnell Research Fellow, King's College, Cambridge, 2003-2007.

Recipient of Agilent Thought Leader Award. 2016. 

Honorary Professor at Imperial College London (2022-)

Visiting Professor at the University of Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy (2011-2012; 2015-2016; 2021-22).

Research

Research Overview

My group has been at the centre of the development of metabolomics as a research tool in biochemistry, and in particular, its application to medical diagnostics and functional genomics. Since my Royal Society fellowship in the Nicholson group at Imperial College London, where I contributed to some of the first papers in this field, my group has made regular presentations at the major metabolomics meetings and published key papers in this research area. In particular we have examined the use of metabolomics as a tool for monitoring metabolic diseases [Kirschenlohr et al., Nature Medicine, 2006; Roberts et al, Genome Biol. 2011; Roberts et al., Diabetes, 2015, 2017; Hall et al., Hepatology, 2017, Charidemou et al., JCI Insights, 2019; Vacca et al., Nature Metabolism, 2020], epidemiology [Harshfield et al., BMC Biology, 2021; Lotta et al., Nature Genetics, 2021], physiological adaption to high altitude [Horscroft et al., PNAS, 2017] and the use of ketone bodies to improve human sporting performance [Cox et al., Cell Metabolism, 2016]. We have also exploited a range of model organisms to explore aspects of metabolism [Keller et al., Science Advances, 2015, Imanikia et al., Cell Reports, 2019]. Central to the ethos of the group is a mechanistic understanding of why these metabolic changes occur, as exemplified by our recent collaborative work to define the function of a novel enzyme, FAMIN [Cader et al., Cell, 2020]. We have also studied the heterogeneity of disease in tissues using mass spectrometry imaging, including the development of fatty liver and tumour proliferation and death [Hall et al., Cancer Res, 2016; Hall et al., Hepatology, 2017, 2021]. We also develop bioinformatics tools for processing multivariate metabolomics data [Hall et al., Metabolomics, 2018, Liggi et al. Metabolomics, 2018, Ferrazza et al., Bioinformatics, 2017; Haug et al., Nucleic Acid Research, 2013].

Research Areas

Accepting PhDs

I am currently accepting PhDs in Nutrition and Health.

Please get in touch if you would like to discuss your research ideas further.

Email Me

Nutrition and Health

Supervising
Accepting PhDs
View Research Area

Research Specialisms

  • Biochemistry
  • Cardiology
  • Diabetes
  • Metabolic Biochemistry
  • Nutrition

Our research specialisms are based on the Higher Education Classification of Subjects (HECoS) which is HESA open data, published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.

Current Research

Developing and appliying techniques for high throughput metabolomics and lipidomics to understand chronic human disease.

Mass spectrometry imaging to underdstand how disease arises at the single cell level in terms of metabolism.

Genome scale reconstructions of metabolism.

Population level assessments of nutrition through metabolomics and lipidomics.

We have active projects in non-alcholic fatty liver disease, type 2 diabetes, heart failure and Alzheimer's Disease.

Datasets

View My Datasets on Pure
Publications

Page 1 of 3 Results 1 to 25 of 56

  • MEATiCode: A comprehensive proteomic LC-MS/MS method for simultaneous species identification in meat authentication

    Duft, R. G., Griffin, J. L., Stead, D. A.
    Food Chemistry, vol. 483, pp. 144231
    Contributions to Journals: Articles

  • Diverse oncogenes use common mechanisms to drive growth of major forms of human cancer

    Kauko, O., Turunen, M., Pihlajamaa, P., Häkkinen, A., Queiroz, R. M. L., Pääkkönen, M., Ventelä, S., Gaetani, M., Lundström, S. L., Murgia, A., Sahu, B., Routila, J., Wei, G., Irjala, H., Griffin, J. L., Lilley, K. S., Kivioja, T., Hautaniemi, S., Taipale, J.
    Science Advances, vol. 11, no. 34, eadt1798
    Contributions to Journals: Articles

  • Technical recommendations for analyzing oxylipins by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry

    Schebb, N. H., Kampschulte, N., Hagn, G., Plitzko, K., Meckelmann, S. W., Ghosh, S., Joshi, R., Kuligowski, J., Vuckovic, D., Botana, M. T., Sánchez-Illana, ?., Zandkarimi, F., Das, A., Yang, J., Schmidt, L., Checa, A., Roche, H. M., Armando, A. M., Edin, M. L., Lih, F. B., Aristizabal-Henao, J. J., Miyamoto, S., Giuffrida, F., Moussaieff, A., Domingues, R., Rothe, M., Hinz, C., Das, U. S., Rund, K. M., Taha, A. Y., Hofstetter, R. K., Werner, M., Werz, O., Kahnt, A. S., Bertrand-Michel, J., Le Faouder, P., Gurke, R., Thomas, D., Torta, F., Milic, I., Dias, I. H., Spickett, C. M., Biagini, D., Lomonaco, T., Idborg, H., Liu, J. Y., Fedorova, M., Ford, D. A., Barden, A., Mori, T. A., Kennedy, P. D., Maxey, K., Ivanisevic, J., Gallart-Ayala, H., Gladine, C., Wenk, M., Galano, J. M., Durand, T., Stark, K. D., Barbas, C., Garscha, U., Gelhaus, S. L., Ceglarek, U., Flamand, N., Griffin, J. L., Ahrends, R., Arita, M., Zeldin, D. C., Schopfer, F. J., Quehenberger, O., Julian, R., Nicolaou, A., Blair, I. A., Murphy, M. P., Hammock, B. D., Freeman, B., Liebisch, G., Serhan, C. N., Köfeler, H. C., Jakobsson, P. J., Steinhilber, D., Gelb, M. H., Holčapek, M., Andrew, R., Giera, M., FitzGerald, G. A., Murphy, R. C., Newman, J. W., Dennis, E. A., Ekroos, K., Milne, G. L., Gijón, M. A., Vesper, H. W., Wheelock, C. E., O'Donnell, V. B.
    Science Signaling, vol. 18, no. 887, pp. eadw1245
    Contributions to Journals: Articles

  • The Yeast Gsk-3 Kinase Mck1 Is Necessary for Cell Wall Remodeling in Glucose-Starved and Cell Wall-Stressed Cells

    Zhang, F., Tang, Y., Zhou, H., Li, K., West, J. A., Griffin, J., Lilley, K. S., Zhang, N.
    International Journal of Molecular Sciences, vol. 26, no. 8, 3534
    Contributions to Journals: Articles

  • Response to Letter to the Editor from Chen and Shan: "Moderate-intensity Combined Training Induces Lipidomic Changes in Individuals with Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes"

    Duft, R. G., Bonfante, I. L. P., Palma-Duran, S. A., Chacon-Mikahil, M. P. T., Griffin, J. L., Cavaglieri, C. R.
    Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, vol. 110, no. 3, pp. e912–e913
    Contributions to Journals: Comments and Debates

  • Oxidised Apolipoprotein Peptidome Characterises Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Liver Disease

    Mocciaro, G., George, A. L., Allison, M., Frontini, M., Huang-Doran, I., Reiman, F., Gribble, F., Griffin, J. L., Vidal-Puig, A., Azzu, V., Kay, R., Vacca, M.
    Liver International, vol. 45, no. 2, e16200
    Contributions to Journals: Articles

  • Effects of seven days’ fasting on physical performance and metabolic adaptation during exercise in humans

    Kolnes, K. J., Nilsen, E. T. F., Brufladt, S., Meadows, A. M., Jeppesen, P. B., Skattebo, ?., Johansen, E. I., Birk, J. B., Højlund, K., Hingst, J., Skålhegg, B. S., Kjøbsted, R., Griffin, J. L., Kolnes, A. J., O’Rahilly, S., Wojtaszewski, J. F. P., Jensen, J.
    Nature Communications, vol. 16, 122
    Contributions to Journals: Articles

  • Chronic inorganic nitrate supplementation does not improve metabolic health and worsens disease progression in mice with diet-induced obesity

    Sowton, A. P., Holzner, L. M. W., Krause, F. N., Baxter, R., Mocciaro, G., Krzyzanska, D. K., Minnion, M., O’Brien, K. A., Harrop, M. C., Darwin, P. M., Thackray, B. D., Vacca, M., Feelisch, M., Griffin, J. L., Murray, A. J.
    American Journal of Physiology: Endocrinology and Metabolism, vol. 328, no. 1, pp. E69-E91
    Contributions to Journals: Articles

  • Monkeypox virus isolation from longitudinal samples in 11 hospitalised patients

    Callaby, H., Olver, J., Emery, K., Richards, K. S., Killip, M., Groves, N., Beadsworth, M. B., Price, D. A., Cooke, G. S., Collini, P., Cole, J., Dunning, J., Semple, M. G., Baillie, J. K., Carson, G., Openshaw, P., Merson, L., Russell, C. D., Zambon, M., Chand, M., Tedder, R., Khoo, S., Horby, P., Turtle, L. C., Solomon, T., Ijaz, S., Fletcher, T., Palmarini, M., Ho, A., Price, N., Alex, B., Andrikopoulos, P., Black, B., Barclay, W. S., Bogaert, D., Chechi, K., Da Silva Filipe, A., De Silva, T., Docherty, A. B., Dos Santos Correia, G., Dumas, M. E., Green, C. A., Greenhalf, W., Griffin, J. L., Gupta, R., Harrison, E. M., Holden, K., Robertson, D., Scott, J. T., Stuart, D., ISARIC4C Investigators
    The Lancet Infectious Diseases, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. e4-e5
    Contributions to Journals: Letters

  • A lipidomic dataset for epidemiological studies of acute myocardial infarction

    Castro, C., Harshfield, E. L., Butterworth, A. S., Wood, A. M., Koulman, A., Griffin, J. L.
    Data in brief, vol. 57, 110925
    Contributions to Journals: Articles

  • Beta-adrenergic agonism protects mitochondrial metabolism in the pancreatectomised rat heart

    Lindsay, R. T., Thisted, L., Zois, N. E., Thrane, S. T., West, J. A., Fosgerau, K., Griffin, J. L., Fink, L. N., Murray, A. J.
    Scientific Reports, vol. 14, 19383
    Contributions to Journals: Articles

  • Multimorbidity is associated with myocardial DNA damage, nucleolar stress, dysregulated energy metabolism, and senescence in cardiovascular disease

    Tomkova, K., Roman, M., Adebayo, A. S., Sheikh, S., Yusoff, S., Gulston, M., Joel-David, L., Lai, F. Y., Murgia, A., Eagle-Hemming, B., Aujla, H., Chad, T., Richardson, G. D., Griffin, J. L., Murphy, G. J., Woźniak, M. J.
    npj aging, vol. 10, no. 1, 58
    Contributions to Journals: Articles

  • Suppression of cyclooxygenase-2 predisposes to heart failure with preserved ejection fraction

    Ricciotti, E., Haines, P. G., Beerens, M., Kartoun, U., Castro, C., Tang, S. Y., Ghosh, S., Das, U. S., Lahens, N. F., Wang, T., Griffin, J. L., Shaw, S. Y., MacRae, C. A., FitzGerald, G. A.
    bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology
    Contributions to Journals: Articles

  • Weight of evidence evaluation of the metabolism disrupting effects of triphenyl phosphate using an expert knowledge elicitation approach

    Beausoleil, C., Thébault, A., Cabaton, N. J., Ermler, S., Fromenty, B., Garoche, C., Griffin, J. L., Hoffmann, S., Kamstra, J. H., Kubickova, B., Lenters, V., Kos, V. M., Poupin, N., Remy, S., Sapounidou, M., Zalko, D., Legler, J., Jacobs, M. N., Rousselle, C., Andersson, P.
    Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology, vol. 489, 116995
    Contributions to Journals: Articles

  • Multi-omics and imaging mass cytometry characterization of human kidneys to identify pathways and phenotypes associated with impaired kidney function.

    Asowata, E. O., Romoli, S., Sargeant, R., Tan, J. Y., Hoffmann, S., Huang, M. M., Mahbubani, K. T., Krause, F. N., Jachimowicz, D., Agren, R., Koulman, A., Jenkins, B. J., Musial, B., Griffin, J., Soderberg, M., Ling, S., Hansen, P. B., Saeb-Parsy, K., Woollard, K. J.
    Kidney International, vol. 106, no. 1, pp. 85-97
    Contributions to Journals: Articles

  • Moderate-Intensity Combined Training Induces Lipidomic Changes in Individuals with Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes

    Duft, R. G., Bonfante, I. L. P., Palma-Duran, S. A., Chacon-Mikahil, M. P. T., Griffin, J. L., Cavaglieri, C. R.
    Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, dgae177
    Contributions to Journals: Articles

  • Large-scale phenotyping of patients with long COVID post-hospitalization reveals mechanistic subtypes of disease

    Liew, F., Efstathiou, C., Fontanella, S., Richardson, M., Saunders, R., Swieboda, D., Sidhu, J. K., Ascough, S., Moore, S. C., Mohamed, N., Nunag, J., King, C., Leavy, O. C., Elneima, O., McAuley, H. J., Shikotra, A., Singapuri, A., Sereno, M., Harris, V. C., Houchen-Wolloff, L., Greening, N. J., Lone, N. I., Thorpe, M., Thompson, A. A., Rowland-Jones, S. L., Docherty, A. B., Chalmers, J. D., Ho, L. P., Horsley, A., Raman, B., Poinasamy, K., Marks, M., Kon, O. M., Howard, L. S., Wootton, D. G., Quint, J. K., de Silva, T. I., Ho, A., Chiu, C., Harrison, E. M., Greenhalf, W., Baillie, J. K., Semple, M. G., Turtle, L., Evans, R. A., Wain, L. V., Brightling, C., Thwaites, R. S., Openshaw, P. J. M., PHOSP-COVID collaborative group, Breen, G., ISARIC investigators, Griffin, J.
    Nature Immunology, vol. 25, no. 4, pp. 607-621
    Contributions to Journals: Letters

  • Propionate functions as a feeding state-dependent regulatory metabolite to counter proinflammatory signaling linked to nutrient load and obesity.

    Kim, H., Meadows, A. M., Rodman, M. J., Russo, A. C., Sharma, R., Singh, K., Hassanzadeh, S., Dagur, P. K., Huffstutler, R. D., Krause, F. N., Griffin, J., Baumer, Y., Powell-Wiley, T. M., Sack, M. N.
    Journal of Leukocyte Biology, vol. 115, no. 4, pp. 738-749
    Contributions to Journals: Articles

  • Metabolic profiling of aortic stenosis and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy identifies mechanistic contrasts in substrate utilization

    Pal, N., Acharjee, A., Ament, Z., Dent, T., Yavari, A., Mahmod, M., Ariga, R., West, J. A., Steeples, V., Cassar, M., Howell, N. J., Lockstone, H., Elliott, K. S., Yavari, P., Briggs, W., Frenneaux, M. P., Prendergast, B., Dwight, J. S., Kharbanda, R. K., Watkins, H., Ashrafian, H., Griffin, J.
    The FASEB Journal, vol. 38, no. 6, e23505
    Contributions to Journals: Articles

  • Nicotinamide Riboside Augments Human Macrophage Migration via SIRT3-Mediated Prostaglandin E2 Signaling.

    Wu, J., Bley, M., Steans, R. S., Meadows, A. M., Huffstutler, R. D., Tian, R., Griffin, J., Sack, M. N.
    Cells, vol. 13, no. 5, 455
    Contributions to Journals: Articles

  • Arachidonic acid inhibition of the NLRP3 inflammasome is a mechanism to explain the anti-inflammatory effects of fasting.

    Pereira, M., Liang, J., Edwards-Hicks, J., Meadows, A. M., Hinz, C., Liggi, S., Hepprich, M., Mudry, J. M., Kim, H., Griffin, J., Fraser, I., Sack, M. N., Hess, C., Bryant, C. E.
    Cell Reports, vol. 43, no. 2, 113700
    Contributions to Journals: Articles

  • Conjugating uncoupler compounds with hydrophobic hydrocarbon chains to achieve adipose tissue selective drug accumulation

    Ng, M. Y., Song, Z. J., Venkatesan, G., Rodriguez-Cuenca, S., West, J. A., Yang, S., Tan, C. H., Ho, P. C. L., Griffin, J. L., Vidal-Puig, A., Bassetto, M., Hagen, T.
    Scientific Reports, vol. 14, 4932
    Contributions to Journals: Articles

  • Environmental chemicals change extracellular lipidome of mature human white adipocytes

    Burkhardt, P., Palma-Duran, S. A., Tuck, A. R. R., Norgren, K., Li, X., Nikiforova, V., Griffin, J. L., Munic Kos, V.
    Chemosphere, vol. 349, 140852
    Contributions to Journals: Articles

  • Plasma Metabolites Related to the Consumption of Different Types of Dairy Products and Their Association with New-Onset Type 2 Diabetes: Analyses in the Fenland and EPIC-Norfolk Studies, United Kingdom

    Trichia, E., Koulman, A., Stewart, I. D., Brage, S., Griffin, S. J., Griffin, J. L., Khaw, K. T., Langenberg, C., Wareham, N. J., Imamura, F., Forouhi, N. G.
    Molecular Nutrition and Food Research, vol. 68, no. 1, 2300154
    Contributions to Journals: Articles

  • The Saccharomyces cerevisiae acetyltransferase Gcn5 exerts antagonistic pleiotropic effects on chronological ageing.

    Li, K., Mocciaro, G., Griffin, J. L., Zhang, N.
    Aging, vol. 15, no. 20, pp. 10915-10937
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
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