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News|Articles|June 30, 2026

ASMS 2026: Yifan Liu and Bottlenecks in Current Untargeted Metabolomics

Key Takeaways

  • Standardization gaps in metabolomics chromatography undermine method selection and reproducibility, particularly for laboratories initiating untargeted workflows.
  • ZIC-HILIC usage can be constrained by elevated back pressure, complicating routine operation and broader adoption.
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In the second of this four-part series, Yifan Liu of Northeastern University (Boston, MA) discusses the biggest bottlenecks in untargeted metabolomics right now.

LCGC International spoke to Yifan Liu of Northeastern University (Boston, MA) regarding her presentation, Low-Temperature HILIC Provides Enhanced Separations and Stability for LC–MS-Based Metabolomics.

Here, Liu discusses the biggest bottleneck in current untargeted metabolomics

“I think there are actually two bottlenecks. The first is that there is no reliable, standard method for chromatographic separations in metabolomics. If a new lab wants to start doing untargeted metabolomics, like us, there isn’t a clear best choice, because, as I mentioned, the ZIC-HILIC column has back-pressure issues, while the alternative common HILIC methods have retention-time drift issues. So the field faces a dilemma: there is no universally accepted column or method that provides the best performance across all sample matrices. The second bottleneck is confidence in identifying metabolites. There is no comprehensive library that provides both retention time and MS/MS spectra for metabolite identification and annotation. The most widely used libraries only provide MS/MS spectra, or, if they do provide both, they suffer from covering only a small subset of metabolites.”

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