How Did Modern-day Metabonomics Begin? How Does This Approach Fit in with Systems Biology? Q&a

Figure 1 | Metabonomics of yore. This urine wheel was published in 1506 by Ullrich Pinder, in his book Epiphanie Medicorum. It describes the possible colours, smells and tastes of urine, and uses them to diagnose disease. What are the origins of the field? The idea that changes in tissues and biological fluids are indicative of disease goes back at least as far as ancient Greece. Diagnostic ‘urine charts’ were widely used from the Middle Ages onwards (Fig. 1). These charts linked the colours, smells and tastes of urine to various medical conditions. Such features are, of course, metabolic in origin. Metabonomics, and the related field of metabolomics, uses modern techniques to analyse samples, but the basic principle of relating chemical patterns to biology is the same.