Genomics. Proteomics. Bioinformatics. Gene therapy. Molecular imaging. Neuro- pharmacology. These terms held little meaning 50 years ago, when the UCLA School of Medicine was founded and the discovery of the three-dimensional structure of DNA was still two years away. Now, with biomedical science moving forward at an ever-increasing clip, many researchers believe these new additions to the lexicon hold the promise of advances that are currently unimaginable, even in these remarkable times.

"In the last five years we've probably learned more than in the previous 45. And the rate of acceleration is only increasing." - Dr. Leonard Rome

No one expects it to be easy. The new fields are producing an avalanche of data, challenging investigators to find the Rosetta stones that will help to make sense of it all, lest they be forced to conduct needle-in-a-haystack searches. "We used to sit down with a piece of graph paper, map our data and then interpret it," says Dr. Leonard Rome, senior associate dean for research at the school. "You can't do that anymore." As research techniques become more specialized and the questions researches can ask grow more complex, the scientist whose expertise crosses traditional fields is in great demand, and large interdisciplinary teams are often a prerequisite for success. Among the fields -- some new, some advancing so rapidly they might as well be -- that are attracting attention:

Many of the changes taking place in biomedical research can be traced to the sequencing of the human genome, as well as the genome sequencing of dozens of other organisms. "For the first time in

human history, we are able to look at biological processes in a genome-wide manner," says Dr. Leena Peltonen, chair of the Department of Human Genetics. "The experimental systems are there to monitor which genes are turned on and off during development and in different disease processes. We can look at how genetic profiles influence overall biology, as well as disease."

The sequenced human genome will bring both short- and long-term benefits, Peltonen explains. In the short run, it provides researchers with "candidate" genes for diseases that have already been pinpointed at a chromosomal site, but whose precise location is unknown.

"It used to take years to identify a gene and characterize it," notes Dr. Edward R. B. McCabe, executive chair of pediatrics. "Today, a graduate student can clone and describe a gene in a 10-week rotation in the laboratory." Now that much of the tedium of characterizing genes have been eliminated, McCabe says, the work is in the analysis, as investigators seek ways to translate the genomic data into advances in prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of disease.

"This will revolutionize how we practice medicine," McCabe says. He expects the new genomic tools to usher in an era of "smarter" drugs to treat disease based on an individual's genetic profile. McCabe also foresees medical practice moving more toward prediction and prevention, and away from only acute management of critical events. "Everyone tells me I shouldn't smoke, I shouldn't drink, I shouldn't eat high-cholestrol foods -- a myriad of things -- but if I knew which ones to really focus on, based on the common conditions for which I'm at risk, maybe I could do a better job," he says.

As difficult as it's been to delineate the A's, T's, G's and C's of the 3 billion base pairs in the human genome of a few individuals, the idea that in the near future there will be technology to sequence the genome of any individual who walks into a physician's office seems far-fetched, McCabe concedes. But when the Human Genome Project was launched in 1990, the technology to complete that task did not yet exist. "The leaders of the project took the attitude that the need would drive the technology and informatics," McCabe says. "And it did."

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