|
Home >
Retention Times >
Volume XI, Issue 3, Autumn, 2002
RetentionTimes
©
The Newsletter of Separation Science
Volume XI, Issue 3, Autumn 2002
LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT
Greetings fellow separation scientists,
We are in a summer swoon (but global warming does not exist, of course),
and I hope you are having a pleasant break from our newly complicated
world. As you will see from this issue of RetentionTimes, the Society
continues to be busy with many activities. A major focus is the new
meeting series, titled
SYSTEOMICS™. It is always a challenge starting a new activity, but
we believe that the time is right and that CASSS can make an important
contribution. The advantage of our Society is that it comes from a
strong foundation in separation science. Our focus is on providing solid
analytical fundamentals. The challenge, however, is to be able to
integrate complex information from different analytical studies,
particularly in the area of life sciences. The
SYSTEOMICS™
meeting will focus on integrating genomic, proteomic, and metabanomic
information. It is only with this integration that one can hope to get a
meaningful description of the complexity of biological systems.
The recent controversy in the field of hormonal replacement for women is
an excellent example of the challenges of validating a new treatment
modality. One risk in the development of a new drug is the presence of
low level side effects that can escape notice in a clinical trial, but
become obvious when large numbers of patients are treated. Usually
patients are carefully selected in a clinical trial, but after approval
a much broader range of individuals are exposed to the drug. As in the
case of hormonal replacement, it often requires a long period of time
before side effects can be properly evaluated. With this tremendous
complexity, cost, and the inability to carry out experiments on human
subjects, we ask: What is a better solution? We hope that new life
sciences research with integration of all of the ’omics will lead to a
reasonably complete chemical description of a biological system and its
response to changes in environmental factors. An even grander goal is
the development of clinical trials in a box! If we can perform these
integrated measurements on a variety of tissues and monitor appropriate
biological fluids, it may be possible to get a broader view of all of
the reactions that a small molecule drug can have in an individual
patient. It is a tough job, but since the complexity of clinical trials
lead us to such unsatisfying outcomes, as with hormonal replacement, we
know that the investment is worthwhile.
Another area that requires much more focus is software development,
which is often the stepchild of biological measurements. There will be
an overwhelming challenge in manipulating, visualizing, and
understanding the ’omics data. Thus a key topic of the meeting will be
bioinformatics and the integration of ’omics measurement.
We are all excited about this new meeting, but know it is a risk
starting something new. I look forward to the strong support of CASSS
members. Please communicate it to your colleagues and together let’s
make this a very successful meeting both for the sake of our Society and
for society in general. I look forward to seeing you at a meeting soon.
Enjoy your summer!
Your president,
Bill Hancock
Inside this issue:
RETENTIONTIMES© ARCHIVES
If
you would like to contribute an article to the RetentionTimes
please contact 
Michael Henry.
Click here if you would like to receive the Retention Times™ via email.
|
