Opportunities and Challenges in Omics

Abstract

Recent advances in “omics” technology have provided a powerful set of tools and concepts that allow us to dissect the entire phenotypic and functional network of genes and proteins present in a cell or organism. Decades of technological development has finally allowed biology and technology to meet each other half way as “omics” are being utilized to probe systems in a wide spectrum of biology and medicine. This special issue of TSR gives examples of how genomics and proteomics are used to study mechanisms and disease states—demonstrating advances and challenges of “omics” in translational neurovascular disease. Specifically, the authors present both bench and bedside examples of mechanismand disease-driven inquiry. Studies probe cell– cell signaling of extracellular secretomes [1], intracellular mechanisms [2], and central vs. peripheral responses after stroke [3]. Efforts are made to understand human diseasespecific states by finding biomarkers for the diagnosis and therapeutic efficacy of hemorrhagic [4] and ischemic stroke [5–8]. Taken together, this issue showcases omics inquiries utilizing target-driven [4, 6], discovery-driven [1, 2, 5, 7], and combination approaches [8]. Dr. Sharp's accompanying commentary provides an insightful and detailed summary of these articles and their interpretations [9].