Bio
Adriano Rutz is a pharmaceutical scientist with a focus on metabolomics, natural products, and analytical chemistry. He gained industry experience at Tradall SA (Bacardi Group) before earning a PhD in phytochemistry from the University of Geneva. Currently a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zurich, he develops computational tools and mass spectrometry-based methods to study the chemistry of living organisms. He is committed to open science and open data, and is one of the authors of the LOTUS initiative, which explores new ways of sharing knowledge in natural products research.
Experience
Postdoctoral Researcher, ETH Zürich (2022 - present)
Computational metabolomics at the Institute of Molecular Systems Biology.
Research & Teaching Assistant, UNIGE (2017 - 2022)
Development of LC-HRMS/MS based approaches for comprehensive composition assessment of complex plant extracts.
In depth annotation using Spectral Networking. Plant metabolomics.
Teaching activities with Bachelor and Master students.
Maintenance and optimization of analytical instruments (LC).
Junior Research Chemist, Tradall (2016 - 2017)
Working in analytical research and Research & Development laboratories following ISO norms.
New products development, analytical and sensory characterization.
In depth analysis of impact compounds, compounds evolution understanding.
Maintenance and optimization of analytical instruments (GC).
Assistant Pharmacist, Pharmacie de la Terrassière (2015 - 2016)
Internship in the frame of Master’s degree.
Education
Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences, UNIGE (2017 - 2022)
Thesis entitled « Integrative Analytical and Computational Strategies for Qualitative and Semi-quantitative Plant Metabolome Characterization »
B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Pharmaceutical Sciences, UNIGE (2011 - 2016)
Mention « excellent » for Master’s thesis « GC chiral separation of main enantiomeric compounds as a tool of Quality Control of some botanicals and related specific final product »
Awards
Swiss National ORD Prize (2023)
Awarded for the LOTUS initiative. See more at https://akademien-schweiz.ch/en/medien/press-releases/2023/adriano-rutz-gewinnt-ersten-schweizer-ord-preis/.
Dr. Willmar-Schwabe-Young-Talent-Prize (2023)
Awarded for the LOTUS initiative. See more at https://ga-online.org/dr-willmar-schwabe-young-talent-prize-2023-for-adriano-rutz/.
Skills
- Bio/Chemoinformatics
- Data oriented, knowledge management
- Mass spectrometry
- Metabolomics
- Natural products chemistry
- Scientific software programing (different languages)
- Sensory analysis
Leadership
Scientific contribution
SAPID: a Strategy to Analyze Plant Extracts Taste In Depth. Application to the complex taste of Swertia chirayita (Roxb.) H.Karst. Permalink
Adriano Rutz; Pascale Deneulin; Ivano Tonutti; Benoit Bach and Jean-Luc Wolfender. (2025). SAPID: a Strategy to Analyze Plant Extracts Taste In Depth. Application to the complex taste of Swertia chirayita (Roxb.) H.Karst. Current Research in Food Science. doi:10.1016/j.crfs.2025.101043.
Automated Composition Assessment of Natural Extracts: Untargeted Mass Spectrometry-Based Metabolite Profiling Integrating Semiquantitative Detection Permalink
Rutz, A., Wolfender, J. L. (2023). Automated Composition Assessment of Natural Extracts: Untargeted Mass Spectrometry-Based Metabolite Profiling Integrating Semiquantitative Detection. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 71 (46), 18010. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jafc.3c03099
The LOTUS initiative for open knowledge management in natural products research Permalink
Rutz, A., Sorokina, M., Galgonek, J., Mietchen, D., Willighagen, E., Gaudry, A., Graham, J. G., Stephan, R., Page, R., Vondrášek, J., Steinbeck, C., Pauli, G. F., Wolfender, J. L., Bisson, J., & Allard, P. M. (2022). The LOTUS initiative for open knowledge management in natural products research. eLife, 11, e70780. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.70780
Advocacy
Data-Independent Analysis for Deep Metabolome Profiling of Plant Extracts
Poster at 21th Annual Conference of the Metabolomics Society, Prague, Czech Republic
Traitement de données et outils d’annotations MS/MS
Plenary and interactive lecture at Ecole thématique METABIODIVEX 2024, Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse, France
Where is the “L” in “ORD”?
Talk at Hotel Kreuz, Zeughausgasse 41, Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Introduction to Linked Open Data for Computational Mass Spectrometry
Talk at Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic
Lotus: A Living Knowledge Base for Modern Pharmacognosy
Talk at University of Innsbruck, Institute of Pharmacy, Innsbruck, Austria
Prior knowledge as a compass guiding untargeted metabolomics
Poster at Swiss Metabolomics Society Annual Meeting, Zürich, Switzerland
Deep metabolome annotation
Plenary and interactive lecture at 6e Symposium International de l'AFERP, Saclay, France
A Distillate of the LOTUS Initiative in Natural Products Research: Sharing Information, Building Knowledge, Extracting Wisdom
Talk at 71th International Congress and Annual Meeting of the Society for Medicinal Plant and Natural Product Research, Dublin, Ireland
Metabolomics Workshop
Plenary and interactive lecture at Summer School on Applied Meta-Omics, Zürich, Switzerland
Prior knowledge as a compass guiding untargeted metabolomics
Talk at Jena Centre for Bioinformatics, Jena, Germany
The LOTUS Initiative: Integrating Natural Products to the Wikidata Knowledge Base
Poster at LS2 Annual Meeting 2022 - Life Sciences in the 2020s: Quantitation, Integration and Prediction, Zürich, Switzerland
The LOTUS Initiative: Integrating Natural Products to the Wikidata Knowledge Base
Talk at LS2 Annual Meeting 2022 - Life Sciences in the 2020s: Quantitation, Integration and Prediction, Zürich, Switzerland
The LOTUS Initiative for Open Natural Products Research: Knowledge Management through Wikidata
Talk at i-npchem inaugural e-meeting,
Untargeted chemical and sensory characterization of Swertia chirayita: a bitter case study
Poster at 69th International Congress and Annual Meeting of the Society for Medicinal Plant and Natural Product Research,
The LOTUS initiative for knowledge sharing in Natural Products research
Talk at 69th International Congress and Annual Meeting of the Society for Medicinal Plant and Natural Product Research,
LOTUS, a Wikidata hosted open naturaL prOducTs occUrrences databaSe
Talk at 2nd RFMF Junior Webinar Series,
Taxonomically Informed Scoring Enhances Confidence in Natural Products Annotation
Talk at 1st GNPS user meeting,
Advanced Course on Mass Spectrometry
Plenary and interactive lecture at Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Napoli, Italy
Strategy for exhaustive plant metabolomes characterization from a qualitative and quantitative perspective
Poster at 67th International Congress and Annual Meeting of the Society for Medicinal Plant and Natural Product Research, Innsbruck, Austria
Development of a Generic Method for a Comprehensive Composition Assessment for Plants of Industrial Interest – Quali/quantitative profiling by UHPLC-PDA-HRMS-ELSD
Talk at Second Austrian Summit on Natural Products, Seefeld, Austria