Endocrine Abstracts

Metabolomics is a discipline dedicated to the global study of small molecules (i.e. metabolites), their dynamics, composition, interactions, and responses to interventions or to changes in their environment, in cells, tissues, and biofluids. Metabolites are the end products of cellular regulatory processes, and their levels can be regarded as the ultimate and amplified response of biological systems to genetic or environmental changes. However, only in the past years, technologies have been developed that allow comprehensive and quantitative investigation of a multitude of different metabolites. The maturation of metabolomics technologies is expected to have profound effect on biomedical research.

We will describe the metabolomics technology and methods, along with selected applications in the context of lipid disorders, obesity and diabetes.