Ruth Welti

Biography

 Dr. Welti is director of the Kansas Lipidomics Research Center at Kansas State University, which is dedicated to providing the latest technology for comprehensive, quantitative, high-throughput profiling of lipids to scientists from around the world. The Laboratory houses several electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometers, gas chromatography mass spectrometers, and personnel to carry out lipid profiling. The center’s activities involve scientists specializing in lipid research at K-State and beyond

Research Interest

 The focus of her research program since 2000 has been on the development of a quantitative, high-throughput, mass-spectrometry-based lipid profiling technology and the application of this technology to identify alterations in lipid metabolism that occur as results of signaling events and/or stress responses. Through ongoing collaboration with researchers working in Arabidopsis, an organism that is particularly genetically tractable and relatively easy to grow and manipulate, they have been able to put into practice a very efficient lipid profiling technology. Funded by NSF, Kansas NSF EPSCoR, Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation, Kansas Biomedical Infrastructure Network, and Kansas State, we have established the Kansas Lipidomics Research Center (I am serving as Director) and its fee-for-service lipid profiling analytical laboratory at Kansas State, we have developed high-throughput, quantitative methods for all the major lipid polar classes in plants, yeast, and animals, and they have examined the role of lipids in physiological responses. The Lipidomics Center can also perform structural analysis and can analyze simple lipids and other metabolites. .