Lexicographers, the people who put together dictionaries, must be having a hellish time these days. First there was the prefix “nano-“-now tacked to just about any scientific research done at length scales smaller than a hundred nanometres. At the same time, the mapping of the human genome has kicked “-omics”-minded buzzword smiths into high gear.
“Omics” comes from “-ome” (as in biome), which refers to the whole set of something. The genome, for instance, is the sum total genetic information encoded in an organism. Here’s our guide to a few such neologisms, based on the number of times these appear on PubMed Central, an online archive of life sciences research papers-since science terms gain currency only after numerous appearances in peer-reviewed publications. No doubt there is a slew of “-omics” terms out there (such as functomics, regulomics, and textomics) still vying to break into the scientific mainstream.
Genomics: The study of the entire of genetic information encoded in an organism’s DNA. Hits on PubMed: 8,335; Earliest record on PubMed: Nucleic Acids Research, Sep. 1987
Proteomics: The study of all the proteins produced by that DNA during an organism’s life cycle. Hits on PubMed: 1,593; Earliest record on PubMed: Journal of Bacteriology, Jan. 1999
Transcriptomics: The study of all messenger RNA (mRNA) produced in an organism under a particular set of environmental conditions. The mRNA carries information from DNA to the place in the cell where proteins are produced. Hits on PubMed: 103; Earliest record on PubMed: Cell, Jan. 1997
Metabolomics: The study of all the molecules in a cell that are by-products of its life processes. Hits on PubMed: 88; Earliest record on PubMed: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Jun. 2002
Glycomics: The large-scale study of sugar molecules that are themselves made up of chains of smaller sugar molecules. Hits on PubMed: 17; Earliest record on PubMed: Journal of Clinical Investigation, Dec. 2001
Lipidomics: The large-scale study of fat molecules. Hits on PubMed: 9; Earliest record on PubMed: Molecular Biology of the Cell, Oct. 2002
Source: PubMed Central, Wikipedia.org
