Immunomics

Immunomics is the study of immune system regulation and response to pathogens using genome-wide approaches. Scientists studying the immune system have had to search for antigens on an individual basis and identify the protein sequence of these antigens (“epitopes”) that would stimulate an immune response. With the rise of genomic and proteomic technologies, scientists have been able to visualize biological networks and infer interrelationships between genes and/or proteins; recently, these technologies have been used to help better understand how the immune system functions and how it is regulated.

Immunomics has made this approach easier by its ability to look at the immune system as a whole and characterize it as a dynamic model. It has revealed that some of the immune system’s most distinguishing features are the continuous motility, turnover, and plasticity of its constituent cells.