Mass spectrometry in epidemiological studies: What are the key considerations?

Excerpt

The incursion of “-omics” (e.g. genomics, epi-genomics, transcriptomics and metabolomics) in epidemiological studies has revolutionized the practice of epidemiology. Comprehensive and accurate assessment of environmental factors and health status has been a perpetual challenge for epidemiology. Omics are expected to broaden the domain of exposure assessment and allow more detailed evaluation of health status, providing further details and additional platforms of understanding. In recent years, novel -omics approaches have enabled epidemiologists to quantify characteristics that were not previously within their reach and to investigate features that up to a few years ago were not even in their sight. Moreover, the agnostic approach that is used in -omics has enabled epidemiology to move beyond current biological knowledge and contribute to build upon it. This has provided an unprecedented opportunity for epidemiology to contribute to cutting-edge and groundbreaking science by exploring pathways and mechanisms in more details and advance our understanding of health determinants at molecular level. …