Why targeted metabolomics is essential for population health

Prof. Dr. David Wishart The Metabolomics Innovation Centre (TMIC) University of Alberta | Canada In this presentation I will describe the benefits of using targeted, fully quantitative metabolomics for con-ducting population health studies. Metabolomics can be divided into two camps: untargeted and targeted approaches. Untargeted metabolomics emphasizes coverage over quantification. Targeted metabolo-mics emphasizes quantifcation over coverage. Currently, metabolomics is experiencing a disturbing shift towards untargeted methods and away from absolute quantification. This is dangerous. To indicate why this is dangerous, I will breifly describe the challenges that the field of proteomics faced when it moved completely towards untargeted approaches and the consequences that this “collective” decision had to the field. To counter this story of caution, I will also describe some of the benefits of performing absolute quantification in metabolomics. Specifically, I will show how quantification improves reproducibility, how targeted metabolomics improves speed and reduces costs and how targeted metabolomics often exceeds the coverage obtained by untargeted methods. I will also highlight how targeted metabolomics is required for ISO and CLIA certification, how the the discovery of biomarkers can be simplified with targeted metabolo-mics and why the translation of discoveries to the clinic and for populatio health studies is far easier with targeted metabolmics than untargeted metabolomics. I will briefly provide some examples of how we have used targeted metabolomics or the data from targeted metabolomics to impact population health. apps.ualberta.ca/directory/person/dwishart

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