Clinical Metabolomics
Clinical metabolomics involves the application of clinical laboratory protocols, standards, and oversight of a global biochemical profiling technology whose results are interpreted relative to a reference adherent. The inevitable role of lipids in cell, tissue and organ physiology is explained by a large number of genetic studies and by many human diseases that involve the blockage of lipid metabolic enzymes and pathways. Examples of such diseases include diabetes, cancer as well as infectious diseases and neurodegenerative diseases. Within metabolomics, lipidomics has its own identity. Analytical approaches such as LC and MS for system-level analysis of lipids and their interacting partners now make this field a promising area of biomedical research, with a variety of applications in drug and biomarker development.