Welcome to your metabolic measurement and metabolic phenotyping resource!
COURSE ANNOUNCEMENT: The next Promethion course in metabolic phenotyping will be held in lovely Las Vegas from June 10th - 14th. It's already close to capacity, but I would be remiss not to announce it here. Feel free to download the brochure, apply and join us. The course teaches participants how to use indirect calorimetry in metabolic screening. We will apply techniques for measuring real-time O2 consumption, CO2 production and water vapor loss for laboratory rodents. Measurement systems also include food & water uptake, body
mass monitoring, wheel running and voluntary activity. Data analysis - such as extraction of REE and AEE, analysis of circadian changes in EE, uptake and behavior, correlation between activity and EE, and much, much more - is a significant focus of the course.
Update! As part of the metabolic phenotyping course held at Sable Systems International last October, I introduced a startling new development - a multiplexed Promethion metabolic phenotyping system capable of obtaining excellent VO2 and VCO2 readings from successive cages in under fifteen seconds apiece. Thus, unlike Promethion's competitors in the field of metabolic phenotyping, you won't have to wait about 45 minutes for successive readings from a given rat or mouse in a 16-cage system. Instead, you'll get a new reading, a.k.a. cycle time, every two minutes - at least a twenty-fold improvement in throughput speed. This is achieved both by the wickedly fast dwell time of under 15 seconds, and by splitting the analytical workload into 8-cage segments. Thus, you get the same record-breaking 2-minute cycle time whether you have 8, 16, 24, 32, 48 or 64 cages. This is in addition to second by second acquisition of sensor data from each cage in the system.
Of course, if you have a real need for speed, a two minute cycle time is intolerable. In that case, Promethion also offers real, field-proven, up-and-running, non-vaporware (get the picture?) systems that update VO2 and VCO2 for every cage every second. These feats are only possible because Sable Systems designs and manufactures all of the equipment used in Promethion systems - the optical benches, mass flow controllers, data acquisition systems, the works. Everything is optimized for reliability, accuracy, and the exacting resolution required for metabolic measurement. Seriously, nothing in the field of metabolic phenotyping compares to Promethion, both in terms of advanced features and its revolutionary "data field system" concept.
This is the companion web site to the book "Measuring metabolic rates: A manual for scientists", by John Lighton. The publisher is Oxford University Press. Of course, nothing is ever perfect, and this book is no exception. Click here for errata - and if you find any errors, please contact John.
This web site is more than a book companion. It features detailed information on several areas of respirometry that John had no room to cover in his book. Among these are metabolic rate and other calculators, plus a series of articles in the blog on some of the latest and most controversial breakthroughs in metabolic measurement. Such as, a massive paradigm shift in metabolic screening systems made possible by "massively parallel" metabolic measurement engines and, if you can't afford those, by wickedly fast multiplexed systems. Many of the blog posts are influenced by the R&D component of John's day job as president of Sable Systems International. John also tweets discontinuously and can be followed on ResearchGate should you so desire. You have been warned.
Join in the conversation! If you are a scientist and become a user of this site (see to the left), you can comment on blog postings and interact with John and other users. It's fast, simple, and we don't spam, ever.
If you don't own the book yet, or would like to replace a copy your colleague refuses to return or pretends they've lost, you can purchase one directly from Amazon.com. If you prefer, you can buy an inscribed, signed copy of the book for $59.95 (postage free in the USA, at cost for the rest of the world) complete with errata list from John directly. Don't include credit card numbers - you will be contacted and a secure transfer will be organized.
Been there? Done that? Tell René Descartes what you think by getting the T-shirt. Aspiro ergo sum - I breathe, therefore I am.
Any questions or comments? Please direct them to John via john@johnlighton.org.
Come back soon!
Other news: The recent metabolic phenotyping course (early October 2012) was a great success! The previous in-depth respirometry course that John Lighton, author of the book "Measuring metabolic rates: A manual for scientists", taught, also went very well. Number 17 in the series, the course lasted for four full days, and taught a wide variety of techniques and approaches in research-grade respirometry, with research animals ranging from fruit-flies to cattle. Uh, in the interests of full disclosure, humans stood in for the cattle. The fruit-flies stood in for themselves.
I wish I could offer you the opportunity to attend a metabolic measurement course this year, but alas, I cannot. That's because this year's December course is already totally sold out. Look in this space for an announcement of the next course, which will most likely be held in February/March 2013. Provided, of course, that the predicted 2012 apocalypse will be delayed, as is always the case with apocalypses.