Figure 3: An integrative omics approach for translational research.

A growing gap exists between the generation of high-throughput molecular data and the translation of omics features into clinically meaningful concepts. Standard clinical research is performed by associating clinical features with pathophysiologic processes, histological alterations and identification of risk factors or comorbidities. The integration of these clinical data leads to the identification of disease networks of sometimes related phenomena such as acute and chronic ABMR or chronic ischemia with calcineurin-inhibitor nephrotoxicity. Omics research aims to integrate molecular diagnostic data into molecular networks. The great challenge in translational research today is to integrate the complex clinical networks with the even more complex molecular networks, in order to identify clinically relevant molecular networks and reclassify diseases on the basis of the underlying molecular alterations. Abbreviation: ABMR, antibody-mediated rejection.