Genomics

Genomics comprises several distinct areas of research; transcriptomics, the study of global RNA expression; genotyping, measurement of DNA polymorphisms and mutations; and bioinformatics, the systematic analysis of biological data generated by technologies such as genomics. The field of genomics has had a rocky past, not only in toxicology, but in the biomedical sciences in general. This is due primarily to the nature of the studies. In a major shift from the research paradigm that has dominated research since the earliest philosophers and thinkers, genomics studies do not require a hypothesis. They are, in fact, considered “hypothesis generating.” Other ways of describing the genomic approach are, “not hypothesis limited” or “discovery-based” investigations. For scientists trained from their earliest science fair projects in the absolute requirement for a testable hypothesis, genomics is indeed a “fishing expedition” and unfamiliar territory.