Move Aside, Genome … It’s the Interactome’s Time to Shine

In the genetics portion of its latest series, “50 Ideas that Could Change Science,” New Scientist says that after the genome, it’s the interactome and phenome that will take genetics to the next level. If genomics is to reach its full potential, then researchers must complete the 1000 Genomes Project, New Scientist says. And palaeogenetics is also important, in that it allows us to see how our DNA has evolved. But interactomes are really the way forward for thinking about human health and improving drug discovery, says Harvard Medical School’s Marc Vidal. Generating and analyzing these maps — which consist of the detailed interactions between proteins, RNA, and genes — will serve as “scaffolds for newly sophisticated models of how cells operate,” Vidal says. And even more important, New Scientist says, could be understanding the phenome, “the sum total of all traits, from genes to behaviour, that make up a living thing.” The complexity of such a project perhaps explains why no one has taken it on yet, New Scientist adds, but there are smaller projects like the Mouse Phenome Database, that have begun.