SEMINAR: CMCA Seminar: Why NMR matters in Metabolomics

In principle, NMR is an ideal technique for metabolomics. It is non-destructive, non-biased, highly quantitative, requires no prior separation, permits the identification of novel compounds and needs no chemical derivatization. However, relative to other analytical techniques NMR is slow and relatively insensitive. Furthermore the identification and quantification of compounds in mixtures by NMR is manually intensive and often error-prone. Because of these limitations, NMR is being supplanted by mass spectrometry for many metabolomics applications. In this presentation I will highlight some recent developments in the field of NMR-based metabolomics and show how NMR can be used to match or even exceed the speed, sensitivity and metabolite coverage claimed by various mass spectrometry methods.