Team: The project will be jointly led by Dr. Robb Flynn (VUMC; MPI), expert in liver disease, metabolic effects of weight loss, and clinical studies; Dr. Jamey Young (VU; MPI), developer of the INCA software platform; and Dr. Clint Hasenour (MPI), providing expertise in metabolic modeling. The team also includes Dr. Jason Samuels, a bariatric surgeon performing RYGB procedures and tissue collection; Dr. Manhal Izzy, providing clinical expertise in MASLD; and Dr. Kate Frederick-Dyer, providing MRI/MRE expertise. This collaboration bridges chemical engineering, bariatric surgery, hepatology, clinical research, and imaging. A graduate student will support customer-discovery interviews, documentation, coding, and productrequirements synthesis in partnership with the PI/MPI team and CTTC.
Technology: We are developing the Human Fluxomics Response Assay, an in vivo metabolic flux analysis platform for humans that combines stable isotope infusion, intraoperative tissue sampling, targeted mass spectrometry, and INCA-based modeling to quantify nutrient fluxes in liver, skeletal muscle, adipose, and other tissues. Unlike static assays, this technology captures “metabolites in motion” and can resolve conflicting views of mitochondrial dysfunction in metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD). INCA, Vanderbilt's established isotope-assisted metabolic flux analysis software, is the computational engine for the product. This project does not replace INCA or merely apply it academically. It expands INCA into a clinically deployable human module by creating human model templates, clinical input-data structures, quality-control criteria, SOPs, and reportable outputs that convert isotope-enrichment data into pathway-level flux estimates. Potential protectable assets include model templates, curated parameter sets, assay workflows, clinical report formats, flux signatures, and validation datasets. The platform will assess how surgical or pharmacologic interventions alter mitochondrial substrate handling and may provide a new standard for validating therapeutic mechanisms in metabolic disease.