Omics meets hypothesis-driven research. Partnership for innovative discoveries in vascular biology and angiogenesis.
The emergence of omics technologies allowing the global analysis of a given biological or molecular system, rather than the study of its individual components, has revolutionized biomedical research, including cardiovascular medicine research in the past decade. These developments raised the prospect that classical, hypothesis-driven, single gene-based approaches may soon become obsolete. The experience accumulated so far, however, indicates that omic technologies only represent tools similar to those classically used by scientists in the past and nowadays, to make hypothesis and build models, with the main difference that they generate large amounts of unbiased information. Thus, omics and classical hypothesis-driven research are rather complementary approaches with the potential to effectively synergize to boost research in many fields, including cardiovascular medicine. In this article we discuss some general aspects of omics approaches, and review contributions in three areas of vascular biology, thrombosis and haemostasis, atherosclerosis and angiogenesis, in which omics approaches have already been applied (vasculomics).
Rüegg
Curzio
C
Division of Experimental Oncology, Centre Pluridisciplinaire d'Oncologie, 155 Chemin des Boveresses, CH1066 Epalinges, Switzerland. curzio.ruegg@unil.ch
Tissot
Jean-Daniel
JD
Farmer
Pierre
P
Mariotti
Agnese
A
D000818:Animals; D050197:Atherosclerosis / Q000235:genetics; D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000379:methods*; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000097:blood / Q000235:genetics* / Q000503:physiopathology; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D023281:Genomics; D006487:Hemostasis / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D023421:Models, Animal; D018919:Neovascularization, Physiologic / Q000235:genetics*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D049490:Systems Biology; D013927:Thrombosis / Q000235:genetics