Metabolomics continues to flourish: highlights from the 2014 Metabolomics Society Conference

The Metabolomics Society has now been organising its annual meetings for 10 years! The 10th annual conference returned, in June, to Tsuruoka, Japan where the very first meeting was also held in 2005—just shortly after our society had been formally established and our journal Metabolomics had brought out its very first issue. So much has happened since those early days and we have come on as a community to establish a field of research which has found great favour in all fields of biology. This was immediately visible just by looking at the programme of this year’s meeting where, across 4 days in daily parallel sessions, we had presentations on a wonderfully diverse range of topics—from irritable bowel disease to winter syndrome in sea bream and from liquorice quality to bladder cancer susceptibility. What was also particularly noticeable and hugely encouraging, was the strong and growing presence of early-career scientists who are stepping into the field and upon whom our future depends. The Society gives great attention to the needs of early-career scientists not only in oral sessions supported by travel awards and other prizes, but also for the first time this year, the Society’s Early-Career Members Network (EMN) committee organised a workshop specifically on issues of particular relevance to those starting out on their professional scientific journey