Metabonomics, measuring the global system metabolic response of a complex organism to a drug, disease or genetic modifier, is becoming an increasingly exciting area for research scientists around the world as it harnesses positive implications for diagnostic screening and patient stratification.

The opportunities presented by Metabonomics to achieve a better understanding of both systems biology and personalised medicine, will be addressed at this year's Cordia Biotechnology Convention to be held in London from Oct 11th-13th. Professor Jeremy Nicholson, Head of Biological Chemistry at Imperial College will lead this session, with Professor Ian Wilson, Principal Scientist, Department of Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics, AstraZeneca and Dr Werner Maas, vice-president of R&D at Bruker Biospin.

The advantage of metabonomics over genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics is that it can be applied to in vivo studies in humans and used to monitor changes in animals over relevant dose ranges.

Metabonomics is also showing great potential for defining biomarkers in both animal and human studies and as a tool in toxicological screening and prediction, where it offers clear advantages for risk assessment.

This detailed session will focus on the technologies, strategies and application areas that will benefit most from metabolomic and metabonomic platforms and will uncover the possibilities for its application throughout the drug discovery and development process, said an official release.