title: The emergence of metabolomics as a key discipline in the drug discovery process.
abstract: Metabolomics is a recent science that could be defined as the comprehensive qualitative and quantitative analysis of all small molecular weight compounds present in a cell, organ (including biofluids) or organism at a specific time point. More and more applications have been found these past years to metabolomics in the pharmaceutical field. Specifically in the drug discovery process, metabolomics open new perspectives, in new targets identification, in toxicological studies and in bioactive natural products discovery. The challenge in metabolomics is to find a technological approach allowing the reproducible identification and quantitation of as much metabolites as possible. In this context, mass spectrometry and NMR are emerging as key and complementary technologies.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for the Analysis of Medicines, Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Medicines (CIRM), University of Liège, Liège, Belgium.
authors.forename: Marianne
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fillet
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Pharmacognosy, Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Medicines (CIRM), University of Liège, Liège, Belgium. Electronic address: M.Frederich@ulg.ac.be.
authors.forename: Michel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Frédérich
mesh_terms: D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid; D055808:Drug Discovery / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends; D006801:Humans; D009682:Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy; D013058:Mass Spectrometry; D055432:Metabolomics / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends