Why Metabolomics?
Metabolomics quantifies the abundance of diverse small molecules present within biological systems. The small molecules captured in a metabolomics analysis range from central carbon metabolites that provide a footprint of the metabolic landscape of a sample to exposure compounds (cosmetics, toxins, dietary metabolites, etc.) that contextualize the environmental factors that may drive metabolic alterations. As metabolites are downstream of genetic, transcriptional, and translational layers of regulation, metabolomics provides a metabolic readout that is closest to phenotype. This yields a powerful opportunity to find not only predictive biomarkers, but to also leverage the enormous collection of biochemical knowledge assembled over the last 100+ years to rapidly translate metabolite alterations into actionable biological hypotheses.