Lipidomics and Decoding Life: From the Technology and Biology Landscapes to Clinical Adaptation

The field of lipidomics centers on the comprehensive study of lipid or fat molecules in cells, tissues, and biofluids. This diagnostic approach studies quantifiable information about the content, profile and interaction of lipids, which are of the most common biological molecules in humans. The lipidome of human plasma or eukaryotic cells contains thousands of lipid entities that structurally and chemically play fundamental roles in cellular membrane regulation, energy storage, or become precursors to bioactive metabolites. Alterations in the lipid content therefore becomes indicative of certain biological, medical, disease and health states. Driven by high expectation in its ability to afford new opportunities for studying lipids in health and disease, and in many other fields of research, lipidomics has meticulously emerged over the past decade. In fact, initial evidence of its power is emerging that draws major attention to the field, resulting in a wave of interest in adopting lipidomics capabilities across research communities. The full release of lipidomics now waits on the standardization of the field.

We anticipate standardization will release the current handbrakes and dramatically boost the lipidomics evolvement worldwide, targeting a transition into the medical community and becoming apart of tomorrow's clinical chemistry. We highly foresee that lipidomic analysis tests alone, or in concert with other present chemical analyses, will provide higher defined metabolic signatures that more accurately describes the molecular profiles underlying specific diseases and their progression, and greatly aid in their diagnosis and prevention. Concomitantly, a myriad of sophisticated lipidomic workflows covering analytical and bioinformatical strategies have recently been developed to delineate lipidomes of diverse origins in great detail and quantitatively.

In this Gordon Conference series, we will highlight recent developments in standardization, omics integration, and state-of-the-art technologies and their impact on applications to study human health and disease. The time is critical to set the future cornerstones in how to powerfully, adequately, and transparently define the lipidomics rules of new and existing platforms in basic research, and most importantly, in a regulatory environment. Overall, the future of lipidomics in the clinical and biological realms will be discussed at this conference, aligning with other ongoing consortia, with an anticipated active involvement of researchers across all important arenas (academic, industry, government) and different stages of their career (established and young scientists).