Guest Editorial—Special Issue on ´-Omics´ Based Companion Diagnostics for Personalized Medicine

Companion diagnostics are essential to the success of personalized medicine. With the rapid advances made in high throughput molecular biology, such as genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics, in the past two decades, scientists, researchers and engineers are beginning to harvest the power of ´-omics´ to develop companion diagnostic circuits and systems. These systems can be used to diagnose, monitor or predict not just a single disease, but multiple diseases simultaneously. This allows for the management of disease at a personal level, i.e., accordingly to the biology, needs and lifestyle of individual patients. Foreseeing this emerging trend, we are pleased to present this special issue to: (i) provide a road map of ´-omics´ networks, circuits and systems; (ii) encourage cross-disciplinary collaboration in this emerging research field; and (iii) report the cutting edge development of these circuits and devices with potential for translation into the clinic. A number of submissions were received, covering a wide range of circuits and systems related ´-omics´ topics, such as (i) DNA, RNA, protein, and small molecule sensors for companion diagnostics; (ii) micro/nanofluidics technologies related to ´-omics´; and (iii) circuit based modeling and simulation of ´-omics´ systems including gene regulatory and signaling networks. After rigorous peer review nine papers were finally selected in this special issue. The papers can be broadly divided into three groups and briefly introduced below.