Smart Biotech Scientist Podcast: “Multi-Omics Begins with ‘Why'” [Part 2]

“To make this very practical to a pharma or biotech scientist who is on the fence about doing omics studies and seeking a multi-omics company to work with, my advice is actually quite simple. The way I always approach this is to forget about ‘what’ you’re going to do. Start with the ‘why’ you’re doing it.

What is the question that you are trying to answer? Are you looking to identify the best target? Are you trying to understand what may be the potential on-target, off-tissue adverse events related to particular therapeutic? Are you seeking to understand which patients are going to respond to a therapeutic or not? It really comes from an assessment of the fundamental biology to focus on, and once you have that information, you can begin to layer on the ideal data or modalities to use.

I really don’t believe in concept of ‘many nails, one hammer’ approach. Rather, this is about understanding the data you need, having a sense as to where that signal may lie, and applying the right technology appropriately to find it.

This is fundamentally what we do here at Sapient as a multi-omics company and service organization. Our job is to partner with individuals who have these clear questions, who are developing therapeutics, and to help align approaches by providing advice regarding potential omics solutions: whether it be a singular omics, or whether it be multi-omics. We help them design the ideal experiment that is set up to answer their specific question.

We go about this by executing on that study, generating the data, QCing that data, performing the statistical analysis of that data, and fundamentally answering the question for them… and most importantly, helping them apply the information gained to advance forward their drug development pipeline.”