Metabolon is partnering with a Spain-based research institute to develop new food and diagnostic tools based on better understanding how food affects health at the molecular level.

John Ryals, CEO of the Research Triangle Park-based company was in Madrid today to sign the agreement with the IMDEA Food Institute, which researches the relationships between nutrition, food and health. The agreement could help find new ways to prevent cardiovascular disease, cancer, obesity and neurological diseases.

No financial details of the collaboration were disclosed. But the entities said they will combine their resources to better understand of the intersection of food and health. IMDEA Food brings to the table its experience conducting human nutrigenomic studies. Metabolon brings its expertise in metabolomics. The company’s proprietary technology finds and identifies biomarkers, the chemical signatures in a biological sample.

Metabolon has already developed its technology into an investigative diagnostic tool intended to predict diabetes. The company’s technology is also used in the food industry where it helps companies improve their understanding of nutrition.

Jose Ordovas, chairman of the board and scientific director of IMDEA Food, said that a combined functional genomics and metabolomics approach is needed to bring nutrition-based personalized medicine to the public. Odovas, a world-reknowned leader in nutrigenomics, is also senior scientist and director for the Nutrition and Genomics Laboratory and chair of the Functional Genomics Core of the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University.

Scientists from both IMDEA Food and Metabolon met at IMDEA’s Madrid headquarters to plan their collaboration and start the first studies of a series of studies defining the molecular basis of action of key food ingredients.