Journal of Analytical & Bioanalytical Techniques
Open Access

Review Article

The Future of Metabolomic Profiling in Population-Based Research: Opportunities and Challenges

¹Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, National Cancer Institute, Rockville, USA

²Division of Digestive Diseases and Nutrition, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Bethesda, USA

³Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture, Beltsville, USA

⁴Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, Rockville, USA

⁵Divison of Cancer Prevention, National Cancer Institute, Rockville, USA

*Corresponding Author:

Joseph Su L, PhD, MPH, Program Director
Epidemiology and Genomics Research Program
Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences
National Cancer Institute, 9609 Medical Center Drive
Room 4E212, Rockville, MD 20892, USA
Tel: 240-276-6822
E-mail: sulj@mail.nih.gov

Received date: July 26, 2014; Accepted date: August 25, 2014; Published date: August 29, 2014

Citation: Zanetti KA, Mette E, Maruvada P, Milner J, Moore SC, et al. (2014) The Future of Metabolomic Profiling in Population-Based Research: Opportunities and Challenges. J Anal Bioanal Tech 5:203 doi: 10.4172/2155-9872.1000203

Copyright: ©2014 Zanetti KA, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Metabolomics is an approach that employs technologies to measure small molecule metabolites in biological samples, thus providing epidemiologists and other investigators with a means to discover biomarkers of disease risk, diagnosis, and prognosis. To advance the field of metabolomics, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is investing $65 million through the NIH Common Fund’s Metabolomics Program, which will support comprehensive metabolomics resource cores, training in metabolomics, metabolomics technology development, metabolomics reference standards synthesis, and data sharing and international collaboration. While this infrastructure will be essential, there remain several challenges to broad implementation of metabolomics in population-based studies. To facilitate the use of metabolomics in population-based studies, the NIH-sponsored ‘Think Tank on the Use of Metabolomics in Population-Based Research’ was held to discuss the current opportunities and challenges of the field and identify potential solutions and/or strategies to address challenges. Insights and conclusions gained from the Think Tank are summarized here.

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