Conference report: 1st Australasian Symposium on Metabolomics

Abstract

The myth of detecting, quantifying and identifying every single metabolite produced by a living cell is still far from reality, mainly because of current analytical limitations, in particular the variability and losses introduced when using different sampling, sample preparation and detection methods. In addition, a more accurate quantification of metabolites is required in order to obtain a more powerful metabolomics dataset, and isotope-tag designed for metabolomics seems to be the latest and most feasible approach for a global quantification of metabolites. These were some of the highlights of the 1st Australasian Symposium on Metabolomics held in Auckland, New Zealand.