The Best Practices Working Group was established in March 2019 to identify, catalog, harmonize and disseminate QA/QC best practices for untargeted metabolomics. As a starting point for defining best practices for untargeted metabolomics, we are actively identifying areas of common agreement amongst metabolomics practitioners. The first interaction took place at a Metabolomics Association of North America (MANA) 2019 workshop with live polling and facilitated discussion. We have since adapted this approach for the virtual world and are planning a series of interactive forums to accomplish our goals. Furthermore, we are developing a literature survey to extend the catalog of QA/QC best practices to include current practices across the reported literature. Harmonization and dissemination of best practices will be accomplished through close collaboration with the Reporting Standards Working Group.

The metabolomics community urgently needs reference and test materials that can be used for measurements across laboratories and data standardization from different instrumental platforms to ensure translation of biological discoveries. Accordingly, we are actively working to develop measurement designs and prototype materials that can be utilized across most, if not all, instrumentation platforms and employed for interlaboratory comparisons. Additionally, we are defining the measurement challenges that different types of reference and test materials have the potential to address, as well as establishing best use practices for test and reference materials.

The Community and Engagement Working Group (CEWG) was developed in early 2021 as a result of discussions derived from the mQACC 2020 priority-setting meeting. These discussions were focused on engagement with the scientific community and increasing the number and scientific diversity of the mQACC membership. The objectives of the working group are defined below and we will engage with other working groups to fulfil these objectives.

As part of the overall mQACC initiative, an international working group has been formed with representatives from government, academic and commercial organizations to develop and promote consistent, meaningful and pragmatic community reporting standards in publications (and other documents) describing untargeted metabolomics studies (metabolic phenotyping/metabolomics) that detail the advisable quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC) measures. This represents part of a strategy to educate the research community about the importance of QA and QC in untargeted metabolomics and promote good practices.