In search of biomarkers - the science of metabolomics in pharmacy

till the less well known relation of the genomic and proteomic disciplines, metabolomics — the study of the metabolome, which consists of the small molecule metabolites found in biological fluids such as blood, saliva and urine — may yet hold some interesting insights into health and illness. As our recent articles on the epigenome (
PJ 2013;290:23) and microbiome (
PJ 2013;290:247) suggest, the various -omics disciplines are starting to make some real waves across lots of different sectors of science and medicine.

Genomics, the study of the genome, and proteomics, the study of proteins produced by an organism, hold the lion’s share of the funding and research conducted so far under the umbrella of bioinformatics. In this article we turn our attention to a slightly less well known branch of the -omics: metabolomics, based on the analysis of low molecular weight metabolites, their changes over time and their potential relevance to health and disease. The emphasis in this particular discipline is on the analysis and the organisation of collected data to yield homogenous, meaningful results.