Pharma-metabolomics in Neonatology: is it a Dream or a Fact?

The 'omics' technologies represent analytical approaches that have a holistic view on molecules such as genes, transcripts, proteins and metabolites constituting a cell, tissue or organism. The profiling of genes, transcripts and proteins has been referred to as genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics. Finally, there is the youngest and most rapidly increasing of the omics disciplines: metabolomics. Metabolomics appears to be a new, very useful tool in neonatology, especially in the fields of pharma-metabolomics and nutri-metabolomics. Since it appears to be predictive and preventive, it can be considered the 'new clinical chemistry' for personalized neonatal medicine. At present, the use of metabolomics in neonatology is still in the pioneering phase. In clinical practice, only a limited number of metabolites are routinely measured in the biofluids of newborns by conventional analytical methods to study the metabolic status of the organism. However, the management of sick or preterm newborns might be improved if more information on perinatal/neonatal maturational processes and their metabolic background were available. The aim of this review, after a general introduction on pharma-metabolomics, is to present the potential of NMR-based metabolomic analysis of newbom urine in neonatology in the field of pharmacology.