Innovation - Metabolite profiling: from diagnostics to systems biology

The concept of metabolite profiling has been around for several decades, but only recent technical innovations have allowed metabolite profiling to be carried out on a large scale-with respect to both the number of metabolites measured and the number of experiments carried out. As a result, the power of metabolite profiling as a technology platform for diagnostics, and the research areas of gene-function analysis and systems biology, is now beginning to be fully realized.