In analogy to the terms proteomics and genomics, the term glycomics has been coined to describe an interdisciplinary research branch that is concerned with the systematic investigation of the glycome, i.e., the total collection of glycans, free or bound to lipids or proteins, in a cell, including additional aspects such as genetics, physiology, metabolism and pathology.
Glycomics is an emerging discipline focused on identifying the glycoconjugate structures in biological samples and determining how the abundances of these important molecules change, for example, as cells differentiate or as disease progresses.