Recently, Haraguchi and Matsura suggested the term "metallomics" to denote metal-assisted function biochemistry, and postulated it to be considered at the same level of scientific significance as genomics and proteomics [1,2]. From an analytical point of view, metallomics is a new discipline where atomic spectroscopy is already successfully applied for speciation as well as for quantification of metals, or better to say for hetero-elements in biomolecules. As such, metallomics can be considered as a subset (referring to cellular biochemistry) of speciation analysis understood as the identification and/or quantification of elemental species in biological systems. At hand of selected examples it will be shown in this panel, that species of interest for metallomics will include complexes of trace elements and their compounds with endogenous or bio-induced biomolecules such as organic acids, proteins, sugars or DNA fragments. It is the main goal of this panel discussion to discuss the new analytical challenges resulting from the novel application areas of metallomics and this will be done at hand of selected examples.
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