A lipidomics roadmap: from basic research to societal challenges

Maria Fedorova; Anne K. Bendt; Justine Bertrand-Michel; Oliver Fiehn; Joanna Godzien; Laura Goracci; Florian Gruber; Xue Li Guan; Xianlin Han; Michal Holčapek; Julia Kuligowski; Peter J. Meikle; Palina Nepachalovich; Valerie B. O’Donnell; Matej Orešič; Sider Penkov; Snježana Petrović; Anton Potapov; Patricia Prabutzki; Laura Righetti; Tatjana Ruskovska; Andrej Shevchenko; Kai Simons; Corinne M. Spickett; Olga Vvedenskaya; Jennifer Watts; Markus R. Wenk; Michael Witting; Yu Xia; Baoru Yang; Maria Rosário Domingues

doi:10.1038/s41467-026-73797-4

A lipidomics roadmap: from basic research to societal challenges

Maria Fedorova^*
, Anne K. Bendt
, Justine Bertrand-Michel
, Oliver Fiehn
, Joanna Godzien
, Laura Goracci
, Florian Gruber
, Xue Li Guan
, Xianlin Han
, Michal Holčapek
, Julia Kuligowski
, Peter J. Meikle
, Palina Nepachalovich
, Valerie B. O’Donnell
, Matej Orešič
, Sider Penkov
, Snježana Petrović
, Anton Potapov
, Patricia Prabutzki
, Laura Righetti

Tatjana Ruskovska, Andrej Shevchenko, Kai Simons, Corinne M. Spickett, Olga Vvedenskaya, Jennifer Watts, Markus R. Wenk, Michael Witting, Yu Xia, Baoru Yang, Maria Rosário Domingues^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

University of California Davis
Medical University of Bialystok
Università degli Studi di Perugia
Medical University of Vienna
Nanyang Technological University
Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute
Cardiff University
Örebro University
University of Belgrade
Universität Leipzig
Wageningen University and Research Centre
Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics
Washington State University
Hamad Bin Khalifa University
Tsinghua University
University of Turku
University of Aveiro

Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article › peer-review

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Abstract

Lipidomics, a rapidly evolving discipline at the interface of biology and analytical chemistry, seeks to comprehensively characterize the lipid composition of biological systems. Driven by advances in mass spectrometry, chromatography and computational analysis, lipidomics has enabled the high-resolution mapping of lipid networks and their functional dynamics across molecular, cellular and organismal scales. In biomedical research, lipidomics is emerging as a powerful platform for biomarker discovery, enabling early diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutic monitoring of cancer, metabolic, and neurodegenerative diseases. The field is also reshaping drug discovery by uncovering lipid-mediated pathways, identifying novel therapeutic targets, and refining assessments of drug efficacy and safety. Beyond medicine, lipidomic analyses are redefining food and nutrition science by elucidating how dietary lipids influence metabolic health and disease risk. In parallel, environmental and ecological lipidomics are emerging as powerful frameworks for assessing ecosystem health, tracking the impact of pollutants and exploring the biological consequences of climate change. Such approaches are also informing the discovery of sustainable lipid resources and the development of novel biotechnological and agricultural innovations. With its rapidly expanding analytical repertoire and cross-disciplinary relevance, lipidomics is poised to make substantial contributions to both fundamental biology and applied science. This Perspective aims to synthesise the current state of the field, delineate major analytical and conceptual challenges, and outline future directions for translating lipidomic knowledge into tangible societal and environmental benefits.

Original language	English
Article number	4778
Number of pages	15
Journal	Nature Communications
Volume	17
Issue number	1
Early online date	28 May 2026
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-73797-4
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 28 May 2026

Bibliographical note

Copyright © The Author(s) 2026. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Funding

This publication is based on work from COST Action EpiLipidNET, CA19105, supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). M.F. lab is supported by “Sonderzuweisung zur Unterstützung profilbestimmender Struktureinheiten” by the SMWK to TUD, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (FE 1236/5-1; FE 1236/8-1; TRR 412/1 – 535081457), and Bundesministerium für Forschung, Technologie und Raumfahrt (031L0315A, DEEP_HCC; 01EJ2205A, FERROPath). M.H. acknowledges the support of ERC Adv grant No. 101095860. M.Witting acknowledges funding by The European Union Horizon 2020, Marie Curie Actions, grant number 101073062. L.G. acknowledges the support of the Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri-Dipartimento per la Coesione Territoriale e per il Sud (CURI project, n. E67G23000200001). J.G. acknowledges the Ministry of Education and Science within the project “Excellence Initiative - Research University”. J.B.M acknowledges the support of MetaboHUB infrastructure funded by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche under the France 2030 programme (MetaboHUB ANR-11-INBS-0010; MetEx+ ANR-21-ESRE-0035; MetaboHUB (JVCE) ANR-24-INBS-0012). B.Y. acknowledges the grants of the Research Council of Finland (Decision No. 356891) and Business Finland (Decision No. 1675/31/2023). X.H. acknowledges the partial support of National Institute on Aging grants R01AG061872, R01AG085545, P30AG013319, and P30AG044271. M.R.D. lab is supported by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia I.P., under the project/grant UID/50006 + LA/P/0094/2020 (doi.org/10.54499/LA/P/0094/2020 (Centro de Estudos do Ambiente e Mar (CESAM)) and UID/50006 - Laboratório Associado para a Química Verde - Tecnologias e Processos Limpos. J.W. acknowledges the National Institutes of Health (R35GM152060). S. Petrović. acknowledges the support of The Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation of the Republic of Serbia, Contract No. 451-03-136/2025-03/200015. P.P. acknowledges funding by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (grant number 565977762). F.G. gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Federal Ministry of Economy, Energy and Tourism of Austria and the National Foundation for Research, Technology, and Development of Austria to the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Skin Multimodal Imaging of Aging and Senescence.

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being

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10.1038/s41467-026-73797-4Licence: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

M Fedorova et al_lipidomics roadmap_from basic research to societal challenges
Copyright © The Author(s) 2026. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Final published version, 2.56 MBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Cite this

Fedorova, M., Bendt, A. K., Bertrand-Michel, J., Fiehn, O., Godzien, J., Goracci, L., Gruber, F., Guan, X. L., Han, X., Holčapek, M., Kuligowski, J., Meikle, P. J., Nepachalovich, P., O’Donnell, V. B., Orešič, M., Penkov, S., Petrović, S., Potapov, A., Prabutzki, P., ... Domingues, M. R. (2026). A lipidomics roadmap: from basic research to societal challenges. Nature Communications, 17(1), Article 4778. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-73797-4

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abstract = "Lipidomics, a rapidly evolving discipline at the interface of biology and analytical chemistry, seeks to comprehensively characterize the lipid composition of biological systems. Driven by advances in mass spectrometry, chromatography and computational analysis, lipidomics has enabled the high-resolution mapping of lipid networks and their functional dynamics across molecular, cellular and organismal scales. In biomedical research, lipidomics is emerging as a powerful platform for biomarker discovery, enabling early diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutic monitoring of cancer, metabolic, and neurodegenerative diseases. The field is also reshaping drug discovery by uncovering lipid-mediated pathways, identifying novel therapeutic targets, and refining assessments of drug efficacy and safety. Beyond medicine, lipidomic analyses are redefining food and nutrition science by elucidating how dietary lipids influence metabolic health and disease risk. In parallel, environmental and ecological lipidomics are emerging as powerful frameworks for assessing ecosystem health, tracking the impact of pollutants and exploring the biological consequences of climate change. Such approaches are also informing the discovery of sustainable lipid resources and the development of novel biotechnological and agricultural innovations. With its rapidly expanding analytical repertoire and cross-disciplinary relevance, lipidomics is poised to make substantial contributions to both fundamental biology and applied science. This Perspective aims to synthesise the current state of the field, delineate major analytical and conceptual challenges, and outline future directions for translating lipidomic knowledge into tangible societal and environmental benefits.",

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Fedorova, M, Bendt, AK, Bertrand-Michel, J, Fiehn, O, Godzien, J, Goracci, L, Gruber, F, Guan, XL, Han, X, Holčapek, M, Kuligowski, J, Meikle, PJ, Nepachalovich, P, O’Donnell, VB, Orešič, M, Penkov, S, Petrović, S, Potapov, A, Prabutzki, P, Righetti, L, Ruskovska, T, Shevchenko, A, Simons, K, Spickett, CM, Vvedenskaya, O, Watts, J, Wenk, MR, Witting, M, Xia, Y, Yang, B & Domingues, MR 2026, 'A lipidomics roadmap: from basic research to societal challenges', Nature Communications, vol. 17, no. 1, 4778. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-73797-4

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N2 - Lipidomics, a rapidly evolving discipline at the interface of biology and analytical chemistry, seeks to comprehensively characterize the lipid composition of biological systems. Driven by advances in mass spectrometry, chromatography and computational analysis, lipidomics has enabled the high-resolution mapping of lipid networks and their functional dynamics across molecular, cellular and organismal scales. In biomedical research, lipidomics is emerging as a powerful platform for biomarker discovery, enabling early diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutic monitoring of cancer, metabolic, and neurodegenerative diseases. The field is also reshaping drug discovery by uncovering lipid-mediated pathways, identifying novel therapeutic targets, and refining assessments of drug efficacy and safety. Beyond medicine, lipidomic analyses are redefining food and nutrition science by elucidating how dietary lipids influence metabolic health and disease risk. In parallel, environmental and ecological lipidomics are emerging as powerful frameworks for assessing ecosystem health, tracking the impact of pollutants and exploring the biological consequences of climate change. Such approaches are also informing the discovery of sustainable lipid resources and the development of novel biotechnological and agricultural innovations. With its rapidly expanding analytical repertoire and cross-disciplinary relevance, lipidomics is poised to make substantial contributions to both fundamental biology and applied science. This Perspective aims to synthesise the current state of the field, delineate major analytical and conceptual challenges, and outline future directions for translating lipidomic knowledge into tangible societal and environmental benefits.

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A lipidomics roadmap: from basic research to societal challenges

Abstract

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Funding

UN SDGs

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