The role of analytical sciences in medical systems biology

Medical systems biology has generated widespread interest because of its bold conception and exciting potential, but the field is still in its infancy. Although there has been tremendous progress achieved recently in generating, integrating and analysing data in the medical and pharmaceutical field, many challenges remain, especially with respect to the crucial core technologies required for analytical characterization. This review briefly summarizes these aspects for metabolomics, proteomics, data handling and multivariate biostatistics.