title: Toward the integration of Omics data in epidemiological studies: still a "long and winding road".
abstract: Primary and secondary prevention can highly benefit a personalized medicine approach through the accurate discrimination of individuals at high risk of developing a specific disease from those at moderate and low risk. To this end precise risk prediction models need to be built. This endeavor requires a precise characterization of the individual exposome, genome, and phenome. Massive molecular omics data representing the different layers of the biological processes of the host and the nonhost will enable to build more accurate risk prediction models. Epidemiologists aim to integrate omics data along with important information coming from other sources (questionnaires, candidate markers) that has been proved to be relevant in the discrimination risk assessment of complex diseases. However, the integrative models in large-scale epidemiologic research are still in their infancy and they face numerous challenges, some of them at the analytical stage. So far, there are a small number of studies that have integrated more than two omics data sets, and the inclusion of non-omics data in the same models is still missing in most of studies. In this contribution, we aim at approaching the omics and non-omics data integration from the epidemiology scope by considering the "massive" inclusion of variables in the risk assessment and predictive models. We also provide already available examples of integrative contributions in the field, propose analytical strategies that allow considering both omics and non-omics data in the models, and finally review the challenges imbedding this type of research.
authors.affiliation: Genetic and Molecular Epidemiology Group, Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Evangelina
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: López de Maturana
authors.affiliation: Genetic and Molecular Epidemiology Group, Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Sílvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pineda
authors.affiliation: Institute for Public Health Genomics, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Angela
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Brand
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Biostatistics, Biomedicine and Bioinformatics, GIGA, University of Liège, Belgium.
authors.forename: Kristel
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Van Steen
authors.affiliation: Genetic and Molecular Epidemiology Group, Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), Madrid, Spain. nmalats@cnio.es.
authors.forename: Núria
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Malats
mesh_terms: D016021:Epidemiologic Studies; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D055106:Genome-Wide Association Study; D023281:Genomics; D006801:Humans; D008957:Models, Genetic; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide
keywords: challenges; epidemiology; exposure; genetic susceptibility; integration; omics data; outcome; statistical methods