COnsortium for METabolomics Studies (COMETS): Leveraging Resources to Accelerate Scientific Discovery

Metabolomics is a systems approachto the biology of health and disease and an ‘-omics’ discipline that measuressmall metabolites representing end products of a variety of metabolic andcellular processes as reflected in available biological specimens (e.g., blood,urine, saliva, feces and tissue). As an emerging approach used forepidemiologic and clinical studies, metabolomics has the potential to improvedisease risk assessment, screening, diagnosis, prognosis and predictiveresponse to therapy, as well as provide disease mechanistic insight and help toestablish criteria for causation. The number of publications of epidemiologicalstudies that use metabolomics technology has rapidly increased over the past 10years, including application to a wide variety of exposures and disease states. It is timely to establish mechanisms for leveraging existing resources and data for novel biomarker discovery using metabolomics approaches. To this end, the National Institutes of Health COnsortium of METabolomics Studies (CO...