Volatile Organic Compound Analysis in Biomedical Diagnosis Applications

This volume presents a thought-provoking state-of-the-art picture of how volatile compounds are used in metabolomics, currently a hot topic in the metabolomics field. It provides a thorough description of what volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are, why they are important in biomedicine, and what the analytical platforms are used. It also looks at multivariate analysis and databases needs.

Because VOCs are end-up compounds of metabolic processes, volatiles can be linked to different diseases or pathologies for both diagnosis and prognosis. The authors provide authoritative information and guidance on the analytical and statistical techniques used and how to identify, and they review the main current areas of application, which include breath metabolomics, cancer diagnosis, and microbial volatiles.

Key Features:

• Presents a thorough overview of volatile research in biomedical applications
• Examines both gold standard techniques (metabolomics based) and artificial olfactory systems
• Reviews all aspects of volatile metabolites in biomedicine research, from origin to detection platforms
• Describes relevant diseases diagnosis and prognosis achievements, including cancer

Raquel Cumeras, PhD,  received a Starting Grant from the Programa Marti Franques at the University Rovira i Virgili (URV, Tarragona, Catalonia) in 2017 to identify reliable and specific urinary bladder cancer biomarkers using metabolomics and crosslinking them with other urinary cancers (prostate and kidney). After completing her PhD, Dr. Cumeras spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California Davis, and after a sabbatical year for maternity, she was a postdoc at the Institute of Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain). Currently, her research is focused not only on the development of metabolomics studies for determining volatile biomarkers but also on cancer metabolomics studies using less invasive samples such as breath, urine, blood, and feces.

Xavier Correig, PhD, is a Full Professor at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV, Tarragona, Catalonia) and has extensive experience in training and research at the Department of Electronic Engineering. He created and coordinated the Metabolomics Platform (http://metabolomicsplatform.com/), a research infrastructure created by the URV and the CIBERDEM (Centro de Investigacion Biomedica en Red de Diabetes y Enfermedades Metabolicas Asociadas). Professor Correig has published more than 200 articles, supervised several PhD students, and created a spin-off company, Biosfer Teslab, which is commercializing the Liposcale Test (a novel advanced lipoprotein test based on 2D diffusion-ordered 1H NMR spectroscopy).