In this Elemental Spotlight interview, the LMF team shares insights into their current projects, international partnerships, and the expanding real-world impact of metallomics.
The London Metallomics Facility (LMF) is a King’s College London core research facility, providing state-of-the-art analytical tools to understand the critical roles of metals in biological processes. As a unique UK hub integrating advanced metallomic analytics with cutting-edge imaging, the LMF enables wide-ranging research, from large-scale clinical studies to environmental metal analysis. Its vision is to strengthen multi-institutional collaboration by connecting leading research groups, industry partners, and commercial organisations, while also advancing education and public engagement. In this Elemental Spotlight interview, the LMF team shares insights into their current projects, international partnerships, and the expanding real-world impact of metallomics.
Q: Can you start by telling us about the London Metallomics Facility?
The London Metallomics Facility is a one-of-a-kind centralised hub for comprehensive, multi-institutional integration of state-of-the-art metallomic analytics and the correlative bioimaging required to define the critical roles that essential and non-essential metals play in biological systems and the environment. Through its analytical equipment and the scientific expertise of its staff, the LMF has established high-impact collaborations between leading metallomics research groups, commercial partners, and industry, while driving educational outreach and public engagement strategies.
The LMF was originally founded with support from a 5-year Wellcome Trust Multiuser Equipment grant in 2016 and later converted into a centrally support core facility in 2020. A lot of work from several technical, academic and support staff shaped the LMF to what it has become today – an analytical playground for answering any metallomics questions.
Q: What current projects is your team working on that relate to metallomics and metal recovery, or metal processing?
Of particular relevance, an upcoming project led by Dr Manuel Montaño has recently received support through Elemental Hub’s mission to catalyse new relationships between UK-US in the field of critical minerals research. The LMF will partner with the Colorado School of Mines to study bioaccumulation of critical minerals in bacteria, plants and other microalgae found in extreme acid mine drainage environments. We will use single-cell ICP-MS and imaging using laser ablation ICP-MS to elucidate the relationship of various metals within these extremophile species.
Q: How does the LMF contribute to breakthroughs in understanding metal roles in health, the environment, or sustainable materials?
What sets the LMF apart from typical academic labs is the scale and diversity of the work we support. Each year, we typically deliver 50+ projects across a wide range of scientific disciplines, spanning varied sizes and levels of complexity. For example, on our solution ICP-MS platform, we recently completed an MRC-funded study analysing 8,500 blood samples to investigate the socio-economic influences on heavy metal exposure in the UK. On our imaging platform (LA-ICP-MS), we analysed more than 125 triple-negative breast cancer tissue biopsies for a Wellcome Leap project exploring endogenous metal biomarkers that could predict chemotherapeutic outcomes. These large-scale research projects are rare within an academic setting and play a key role in advancing our understanding of the roles of metals in human health and the environment.
Q: What kind of real-world impact do you see metallomics research having?
Metallomics research can now answer very simple translational questions, for example, whether a metal-based drug is reaching its target effectively and at a therapeutic dose. These insights are essential for developing novel metal-based drugs and shaping innovative therapeutic strategies. Research can also help us understand the implications of potentially harmful exogenous exposures, whether environmental from the food and drink we consume, or arising from the deterioration of metal-based implants in routine clinical care. Improving our understanding of these exposures will help develop mitigation policies and even guide new biomaterial developments with real-world impact. Metallomics can also shed light on how metal pollutants accumulate and move through ecosystems, shaping human exposure risks and informing strategies to protect public and environmental health.
Looking ahead, medium- to long-term research ambitions include understanding the critical roles of endogenous metals in human and environmental health and disease. This work will help unravel the molecular mechanisms underlying metal-related conditions such as neurodegeneration, cancer, and autoimmune diseases. Ultimately, metallomics will support the identification of metal-based biomarkers for early disease detection and for monitoring treatment response by complementing cutting-edge ’omics’, and can also illuminate how metal exposures affect environmental health, guiding strategies to protect ecosystems and the populations that depend on them.
Q: Which collaborations or partnerships have been particularly valuable or exciting for your work?
Our team at the LMF works with a broad range of scientists across academia, start-ups, and industry. Each of us is personally invested in specific projects. For example, Manuel specialises in environmental nano- and micro-particles, developing technologies to measure them and understand their effects. Renata is heavily supporting a project monitoring heavy metals, particularly mercury in fish from African rivers and arsenic in rice grains in Vietnam. Piotr is focused on advancing imaging technologies, including laser ablation single-cell ICP-MS and correlative imaging using lanthanide-tagged antibodies. Alex is particularly interested in multi-omics studies that integrate several imaging platforms to build rich datasets in cancer, infection, and immunology.
Q: What advice would you give to researchers or organisations considering working with LMF or entering metallomics?
Experimental design is critical not only to ensure rigorous and trustworthy data but also to maximise efficiencies related to resource. Sample preparation is often overlooked but is essential to prevent contamination or perturbing samples and potentially confounding the results and subsequent interpretation. Finally, the multidisciplinary nature of metallomics makes collaboration essential. Working with clinicians, technology specialists and fundamental scientist is vital for answering the toughest questions.
Q: If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self when starting out in this field, what would it be?
Carl Sagan, a famous American astronomer, said ‘the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence’ referring to lack of evidence for a phenomenon e.g. a black hole does not rule out its existence. Analytical technologies are becoming increasingly complex and sensitive, and the fact that we can’t detect certain metals, compounds, or molecules today doesn’t mean we won’t be able to in the future. Stay inquisitive, keep questioning, and always remain open to the unexpected.
Q: Looking ahead, what are your short- and long-term goals for the LMF and metallomics research?
The LMF aims to support complex correlative projects more routinely in the future by integrating histology, spatial transcriptomics, lipidomics, and proteomics with the underlying metallomic content to build richer, multi-layered biological insights. This is challenging and requires collaboration with technical professionals in each respective discipline. However, the potential benefit of having these platforms available and facile for scientist is exciting to generate more refined tools for researchers to questions for translational benefit.
Contact London Metallomics Facility:
King’s College London
Franklin Wilkin Building
London, SE1 9NH
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/facilities/london-metallomics-facility