Quality management (QM) assures study rigor and reproducibility. Clear QM reporting standards encourages transparency and over time will ultimately promote high-quality metabolomics research. The Metabolomics Quality Assurance and Quality Control Consortium (mQACC; https://www.mqacc.org) is a community-led initiative established in October 2017 with the mission to engage the metabolomics community to communicate and promote the development, dissemination, harmonization, standardization and reporting of best QA/QC practices in untargeted metabolomics. We are a fast growing community with over 100 members from North America, South America, Europe, and Asia, including industry, government, and academic stakeholders. mQACC has established several working groups to achieve their objectives, including reference materials, best practices, reporting standards, and community engagement. Recent key achievements of the consortium working groups are: 1) publication of a framework to encourage the reporting of quality assessment, quality control procedures and outcomes in untargeted metabolomics, with a focus on the reporting of QC samples in sufficient detail for them to be evaluated by other scientists (Kirwan et al, Metabolomics 2022 18 (9):70. doi: 10.1007/s11306-022-01926-3; Reporting Standards Working Group); 2) a literature scoping review on the use of pooled QC samples in LC-MS-based metabolomics; Broeckling et al, Anal. Chem doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.3c02924 (Best Practices Working Group); 3) publication of a review of current reference materials and methodologies used within the untargeted metabolomics and lipidomics communities (Lippa et al, Metabolomics 2022 18(4):24. doi: 10.1007/s11306-021-01848-6; Reference and Test Materials Working Group); 4) engagement with the metabolomics community over the last four years through a combination of interactive forums and workshops to identify key practices across relevant technical areas: pooled/intra-study QC samples, system suitability evaluation/USe of internal standards, analytical batch design, metabolite identification, reference materials, and data quality review (Best Practices Working Group); resulting in a living guidance document to inform the community and 5) increased focus on consortium engagement with the metabolomics community using electronic communication, including X (formerly Twitter) - currently with over 900 followers (Community Engagement Working Group). In addition to describing the mQACC priorities and future objectives, we will highlight how the metabolomics community can get involved in this important initiative.
