ABSTRACT
There are four biochemical components that control biological systems by serving as building blocks and as information databases: genes, transcripts, proteins, and metabolites. The study of these four components have become entire fields of biological study and have often been referred to collectively as the omics, including genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics. The ability to study each of these biological components in great detail and to study the relationship between them has led to significant advances in medical discovery and understanding. The goal of medical systems biology is to integrate all biological information to understand mechanistic information about cellular events and functions that may contribute to disease propensity, development, progression, diagnosis, and/or treatment.
