COMETS Projects and Collaborations

List of COMETS Projects

Projects are classified according to the following focus areas:

1. Health outcomes projects are focused on associations between metabolites and diseases/other health outcomes
2. Exposures and genetics projects are focused on the interrelationships among exposures, or genetics and metabolites
3. Metabolite(s)-focused projects will assess the interrelationships between exposures or genetics and specific metabolites (or classes of metabolites) and their role on health outcomes
4. Methods projects will address analytical, platform, harmonization, statistical or other methodologic topics

Proposing New Projects

The 2024 deadlines for submitting proposals are March 14, July 15, and November 14. Although COMETS members can submit proposals at any time throughout the year, they will not be reviewed until after the next deadline closest to the time of submission.

Download the Study Proposal Form

Overview of the review process for COMETS proposals

Proposals are submitted by sending them to Luciana Crotti Espinoza and Kelly Crotty via email by the indicated deadline.

1. Initial Review - This will be completed within three weeks of the submission deadline and will consist of the following steps:
   • The Proposal Review Chair will make the proposals available to all steering committee members interested in participating in the review. One steering committee member will be assigned to be the primary reviewer for each proposal.
   • Comments and preliminary scores (1-5, corresponding to the criteria listed below, are due two weeks after the submission deadline.)
     • Approve as is
     • Approve with modifications
     • Deny with suggestions for revision
     • Deny due to overlap with other COMETS ongoing project
     • Deny due to insufficiently narrow in scope
   • During the third week, all proposals will be reviewed during a teleconference to which all investigators that submitted proposals will be invited to participate
     • The primary reviewer for each proposal will lead the discussion of that application. Proposal investigators may be asked to provide additional information about their project.
     • All steering committee members on the call will vote for a final score for each proposal.
2. For proposals receiving a 2 (Approve with minor modifications), revisions can be approved by email.
3. For proposals requiring major revisions or modifications in scope, investigators should submit a revised proposal and explanatory cover letter. The revised proposal will be discussed on the next Executive Committee call.

Guidelines on publishing a COMETS project

COMETS members should follow these guidelines when publishing or presenting on a COMETS projects. Including COMETS in the authorship would enable "COMETS" to be part of the PubMed index, thereby facilitating finding related publications. 

Goal

To facilitate searching and tracking of COMETS publications, members should consider including COMETS as part of the authors or title of COMETS-related publications.

Guidelines

• For publications or conference abstracts that address a project or topic related to the entire COMETS consortium (e.g. description of COMETS consortium, COMETS Analytics, Interest Group, etc.), the term "COMETS" or the name of the COMETS Interest Group (e.g. "COMETS Statistics Interest Group") should be included in the authorship and appear in the title. 
• For publications or abstracts that arise from COMETS projects (e.g. meta-analyses or analyses using COMETS cohort data), members should include a suffix containing the word COMETS in their title. Suggestions of suffixes include ": a COMETS Project" or ": a Report from COMETS" or ": a COMETS Study."
• For publications or abstracts arising from collaborations with COMETS (e.g. collaboration using COMETS resources), "COMETS" or the specific COMETS IG should be included in the acknowledgements. 

Examples of previous COMETS publications

• Playdon MC, Joshi AD, Tabung FK, Cheng S, Henglin M, Kim A, Lin T, va Roekel EH, Huang J, Krumsiek J, Wang Y, Mathé E, Temprosa M, Moore S, Chawes B, Eliassen AH, Gsur A, Gunter MJ, Harada S, Langenberg C, Orešič M, Perng W, Seow WJ, Zeleznik OA. Metabolomics Analytics Workflow for Epidemiological Research: Perspectives from the Consortium of Metabolomics Studies (COMETS). Metabolites. 2019 Jul 17; 9(7).

• Temprosa M, Moore SC, Zanetti KA, Appel N, Ruggieri D, Mazzilli KM, Chen K, Kelly RS, Lasky-Su JA, Loftfield E, McClain K, Park B, Trijsburg L, Zeleznik OA, Mathé E. COMETS Analytics: An Online Tool for Analyzing and Meta-Analyzing Metabolomics Data in Large Research Consortia. American Journal of Epidemiology. 2021 Apr 22; 191(1).

Example of planned publication

• COMETS Analytics v2.0 Implements Generalized Linear Models: Findings from the COMETS Lung Disease Interest Group. Rachel S Kelly.

Developed by the COMETS Data Infrastructure and Lung Interest Groups in January 2023.