Clinical Metabonomics
Definition
The suffix "omics" is very much in vogue. By analogy to 'genomics', the term applied to studying the impact of the entire genome on the organism (as opposed to the impact of individual genes), "omics" are terms applied to high data density analytical techniques that simultaneously analyse hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of parameters simultaneously, with the assumption that this sample is in some way representative of the entire constituency under study. Thus, 'proteomics' is the term used to describe any of a variety of analytical techniques that measure the levels of many different proteins in a single sample (for example, of blood). 'Metabonomics' is, therefore, the equivalent approach applied to small molecule metabolites, such as glucose, cholesterol and so forth. Metabonomics as a discipline has evolved out of the work of Prof. Jeremy Nicholson and his colleagues, now at Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine. Prof. Nicholson gives the following definition for metabonomics:
METABONOMICS : "a systems approach to examining the changes in hundred or thousands of low molecular weight metabolites in an in tact tissue or biofluid"