Gerhard Liebisch

This is the sixth instalment of a series of articles exploring current topics in separation science that will be addressed at the HPLC 2017 conference in Prague, Czech Republic, from 18–22 June.

Lipidomics, the analysis of lipids by mass spectrometric methods, revolutionized lipid science (1). It provides detailed quantitative information on hundreds of lipid species and opens new possibilities to gain an insight into lipid biology. This helps not only to explain the vital role of lipid species as membrane building blocks, but also to unravel their bioactive functions. Thus, lipid species can act as signaling molecules and modulate membrane properties, which are essential for organelle and membrane protein function. Moreover, the first examples demonstrated their potential as novel biomarkers to monitor human health.