METABOLOMICS IN MEDICAL SCIENCES--TRENDS, CHALLENGES AND PERSPECTIVES.

Metabolomics is the latest of the "omic" technologies that involves comprehensive analysis of small molecule metabolites of an organism or a specific biological sample. Metabolomics provides an insight into the cell status and describes an actual health condition of organisms. Analysis of metabolome offers a unique opportunity to study the influence of genetic variation, disease, applied treatment or diet on endogenous metabolic state of organisms. There are many areas that might benefit from metabolomic research. In the article some applications of this novel "omic" technology in the field of medical sciences are presented. One of the most popular aims of metabolomic studies is biomarker discovery. Despite using the state-of-art analytical techniques along with advanced bioinformatic tools, metabolomic experiments encounter numerous difficulties and pitfalls. Challenges that researchers in the field of analysis of metabolome have to face include i.a., technical limitations, bioinformatic challenges and integration with other "omic" sciences. One of the grand challenges for studies in the field of metabolomics is to tackle the problem of data analysis, which is probably the most time consuming stage of metabolomic workflow and requires close collaboration between analysts, clinicians and experts in chemometric analysis. Implementation of metabolomics into clinical practice will be dependent on establishment of standardized protocols in analytical performance and data analysis and development of fit-for-purpose biomarker method validation. Metabolomics allows to achieve a sophisticated level of information about biological systems and opens up new perspectives in many fields of medicine, especially in oncology. Apart from its extensive cognitive significance, metabolomics manifests also a practical importance as it may lead to design of new non-invasive, sensitive and specific diagnostic techniques and development of new therapies.