Lipomics: Mastering metabolites

Genomics provides an abundance of information for drug discovery and pharmacogenetics, but the expression of genes is many steps removed from the end phenotype. For Lipomics Technologies Inc., measuring an organism's metabolite concentration is more closely tied to phenotype than is gene expression. Thus, the company believes technology for profiling a complex system's metabolites will prove to be an important tool not only for drug discovery and personalized medicine, but also for nutritional health.

President and CEO Steven Watkins said the company was born out of his work at the University of California at Davis and a desire to "take a snapshot of metabolism in time." ...