What will metabolomics studies mean to endocrinology?
- Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, Metabolic Center, University Medicine Greifswald, Ernst‐Moritz‐Arndt University, Ferdinand‐Sauerbruch‐Strasse, D-17475 Greifswald, Germany
- (Correspondence should be addressed to H Wallaschofski; Email: henri.wallaschofski{at}uni-greifswald.de)
Personalized medicine is a key topic for the development of future health-care provisions, even in endocrinology. The objective of personalized medicine is to use state-of-the-art diagnostics and novel therapeutic interventions that take into account the specific requirements and characteristics of the individual patient in order to optimize the effectiveness of treatments, avoid unwanted adverse reactions, and significantly reduce health-care costs. Identification of molecular pathways by integrated analysis of genetics and further molecular information by available OMICs technologies in combination with clinical phenotypes and biomarkers is the hallmark of this development. The majority of our current medical practice is based on extrapolated research in physiology, knowledge from randomized controlled trials or epidemiological studies of large cohorts, and expert experience. Most of those studies do not take into account the individual's genetic, proteomic, and metabolic characteristics. It is time to bridge this gap between knowledge accumulated from basic science, discovering molecular pathways and mechanism by new OMICs technologies, and clinical research with an implementation of personalized medicine at the patient's bedside – this can be achieved by the approach of metabolomics.
Metabolomics is a technique that …
