At the recent "Beyond the Genome" conferencen in Birmingham I had the
singular pleasure of another lunch-time chat with Hans Westerhoff and Luiz
Acerenza over a hamburger and coke. The following was prompted by a
question to Craig Venter after he had shown us that sequencing a genome is
now a routine matter. With their setup they can now sequence the yeast
genome in one day; Mycoplasma in 15 minutes. So, he was asked what
follows next and he gave the expected answer of transcriptome and proteome
(can't remember whether he mentioned the metabolome).
We wondered where BTK fits into this picture. In my talk I had suggested that
we use the collective term "cellulome" to describe the genome-transcriptome-
proteome-metabolome consortium. As a whole, however, the cellulome still
describes "dead" information (to use Hans's description); important, yes, but
nevertheless dead. What should we call a cellulome into which life has been
breathed. Hans came up with "vivome", a term that I immediately responded to
warmly.
So, our conclusion was BioThermoKinetics can be elegantly described as the
bridge between the cellulome and the vivome (at least this was what gelled in
my mind after our chat).
Hoping-that-you-find-this-snippet-usefully yours
Jannie
Prof. Jannie Hofmeyr Tel: +27 21 808 5842
Dept. of Biochemistry Fax: +27 21 808 5863
University of Stellenbosch e-mail: jhsh at maties.sun.ac.za
Private Bag X1
Matieland 7602
South Africa
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