Advances in genomics have opened the doors to large-scale, high-throughput acquisition of biological data. As a result, our understanding of biology has increased substantially, so much so that this phase in history has been termed the 'DNA revolution'. But what about the workhorses of the body? What more could our proteome reveal? Just as genomics underwent a revolution, proteomics is having its own revolution right now. Introducing Olink Explore 1536, a product created for the screening and discovery of novel protein biomarkers.

The following study illustrates how transcriptomics and proteomics complement one another to clarify the pathology of a complex, and little understood disease. Atopic dermatitis (AD) is the most common chronic skin condition affecting up to 20% of children and 7-10% of adults, depending on the population. The disease is incredibly complex and heterogenous, so finding an effective treatment has proven to be quite difficult. Moreover, the use of the skin biopsy as a method of sample collection is incredibly invasive and can cause scarring. Therefore, Rojahn et al. (2020) sought to test a less invasive and painful method known as skin blistering, which, unlike skin biopsies, would allow both transcriptomic analysis from skin cells, and proteomic analysis of the interstitial fluid from the blister.

To achieve the goal of precision medicine, not only do different molecular profiles need to be understood in disease populations, but they must also be understood in the context of healthy populations. This especially applies to the stability of molecular profiles among healthy individuals over time, as this will clarify what qualifies as a ‘normal range’ of clinical parameters in health and disease research. The following study by Tebani et al. (2020) conducted a longitudinal analysis of the blood profiles from 100 healthy individuals to understand how they varied both between different individuals, and within an individual over time.

Welcome to the first post of the all-new weekly Olink to Science! Our customer survey revealed that you would like to know more about the many publications, research, and other science happening at Olink, therefore this blog aims to do just that: keep you informed on the exciting science taking place with our technology.