Table 1.

The application of NMR-based metabonomics to drug development

Aspects	Objectives	References
Identification and authentication of drug action pattern	Distinguish the metabolic conditions of animal models between different species and strains, identify human in disease state and construct suitable animal model for research of human disease, drug efficacy and toxicity.	Aardema and MacGregor, 2002
Drug action mechanism study	Investigate the role of toxicants in toxic lesion and how they produce these toxic effects.	Slim et al., 2002; Williams and Lock, 2004
Preclinical drug toxicity evaluation	Establish new drug safety assessment norms, reduce toxic effect, provide scientific basis for new drugs toxic effect level on human health and anticipate this effect level of new drugs for sale.	Lindon et al., 2003; 2005; Bollard et al., 2005 TCM modern research
TCM modern research	Integrate (‘assemble’) a range of information systems to explain complicated TCM science theories.	Zhang et al., 2006; Li et al., 2007b

NMR, nuclear magnetic resonance; TCM, traditional Chinese medicine.