Daniel Raftery, PhD

Dr. Daniel Raftery is an expert in metabolomics, or the advanced study of metabolism, which focuses on the body’s process of transforming the food we eat into life-sustaining energy and the building blocks of our cells. Cancer cells produce and use energy differently than healthy cells, and their metabolism is altered in other ways as well. Dr. Raftery works to exploit these differences to detect cancer much earlier than traditional methods allow. He does this by identifying small molecules involved in metabolism called metabolites which are altered by cancer. Using state-of-the-art, high-throughput technology, Dr. Raftery and his colleagues detect hundreds or thousands of individual metabolites in a single experiment, such as from a drop of blood, which are then combined into a metabolite profile using machine learning or AI methods. In addition to early cancer detection, metabolite profiling can also be useful for detecting cancer recurrence and for guiding treatment decision making. Dr. Raftery also uses metabolite profiling in studies of diabetes and heart disease as well as nutrition-based disease prevention and aging.