Metabolomics for novel biomarker discovery

Abstract

I a seminal paper in 1922, a young Otto Warburg made the finding that cultured tumor cells undergo a major shift in metabolism. The cells would utilize unusually large amounts of glucose and, through glycolysis, convert this into lactate. The most unusual aspect of this metabolic shift was that it happened even in the presence of ample oxygen. This shift in glycolysis became known as the Warburg effect or Warburg metabolism and became a focus for cancer research for decades. Following the discovery of the first oncogene in the 1970’s, cancer research began to shift focus from metabolism to genetics and the genetic cause of cancer and for the next 30 years this has been a principle direction. Over the past 10 years, researchers have made considerable progress in understanding the biochemical function of oncogenes, tumor suppressors, tumor enhancers and modifiers and it is becoming clear that many alter cellular metabolism. With these findings and the availability of powerful global metabolomic technology, we are now reaching a detailed understanding of the metabolic derangements occurring in the evolution of a normal cell to a cancer cell and the compensating metabolic adjustments that allow the cancer cells to grow. This session will focus on the emerging understanding of cancer metabolism and how this understanding is leading us to discover new metabolic cancer biomarkers which can be used for a more detailed diagnosis of different cancer stages.