Breath Biomarkers of Disease and Health Outcomes (BREATHE OUT)

Dr. Jacob Mey is a productive early career scientist applying for this COBRE Research Project Leader position to support his transition to an independent research career. He has a strong clinical nutrition (registered dietitian) and metabolism background, with a history of growth and productivity throughout the evolution of his research career. His established expertise in metabolic disease and recent novel findings identifying breath profiles of malnutrition have directed his interest towards a major clinical need: improving screening and monitoring of metabolic health — a priority directly relevant to the mission of the Metabolic Basis of Disease COBRE. Metabolic diseases, particularly type 2 diabetes, affect millions of Americans, yet a significant portion of the population remains undiagnosed due to barriers associated with current blood-based screening methods. The exhaled breath represents an innovative, non-invasive biological specimen to identify biomarkers of metabolic health, with potential for the development of a point-of-care screening tool. The objective of this project, "Breath Biomarkers of Disease and Health Outcomes" (BREATHE OUT), is to identify novel breath biomarkers of metabolic disease and validate their predictive capacity against gold-standard methods. Specific Aim 1 will determine if breath biomarkers can distinguish between distinct human metabolic phenotypes, with groups ranging from optimal health, at-risk/obesity, and overt metabolic disease/type 2 diabetes. This aim will utilize advanced bioinformatics tools to identify and characterize unique breath signatures related to metabolic health. Specific Aim 2 will validate the clinical utility of these breath biomarker profiles by comparing them to the gold-standard hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp. This aim will leverage an ongoing NIH-funded clinical trial to assess if breath profiles predict insulin sensitivity more accurately than traditional blood-based markers. This COBRE-supported research builds upon Dr. Mey’s prior work and expertise and will provide critical proof-of-concept data to support future R01 applications aimed at translating breath analysis into clinical practice to reduce the burden of undiagnosed metabolic disease. This COBRE RPL position can play a pivotal role in Dr. Mey’s career development, enabling him to merge his early successes in both metabolic research and breath profiling to the high-impact field of metabolic disease diagnostics. The position provides essential protected time and access to expert mentorship and facilities, specifically the COBRE’s Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Core lead by Dr. Ghosh, enabling the application of sophisticated machine learning to high-dimensional datasets. Ultimately, this support will facilitate the generation of critical proof-of-concept data required to secure competitive R01 funding, establishing Dr. Mey as an independent investigator at the forefront of non-invasive metabolic health screening. Project Number: 2P20GM135002-06A1 | Fiscal Year: 2025 | NIH Institute/Center: National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) | Principal Investigator: Jacob Mey | Institution: LSU PENNINGTON BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH CTR, BATON ROUGE, LA | Award Amount: $225,000 | Activity Code: P20 | Study Section: Special Emphasis Panel[ZGM1 RCB-3 (C2)] View on NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/11513700