Introduction: Metabolome analyses for systems biology

Abstract

We are currently in a phase of scientific enquiry that is increasingly driven by the need to analyse biological systems much more holistically. Much of the excitement with respect to this need is due to the realization among practitioners of the traditional reductionist approach, including biochemists and molecular biologists, that there is more to biological systems than can be adequately accounted for by reductionist enquiries alone. Although not entirely novel, a 'systems' perspective in biology affords challenges and prospects which are only now being fully addressed in detail. © 2005 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. All rights reserved.