How long have we all been circling around asthma in order to capture its driving mechanisms? It is quite confronting that, despite excellent research during the past half century, we are still largely ignorant with regard to the biological pathways that cause and maintain this highly prevalent disease. Fortunately, asthma patients around the world are experiencing, daily, the benefits of solid research, which has led to very effective treatment options, at least for those that have access to good clinical care. Hence – yes – we have learned how to suppress the disease in most (but not all) patients, but it is paradoxical that this has all been achieved without an exact understanding of the fundamental pathogenesis and pathophysiology of the disease. Broad metabolomic profiling of patients with asthma allows discovery of previously unidentified disease mechanisms