The Genomic Revolution and Endocrine Pathology

The genome has been sequenced. However, the functions of each gene remain to be elucidated through phenotypic analysis. This analysis has been called phenogenomics. That part of phenogenomics related to disease can be called pathogenomics or Genomic Pathology. The initial phases of disease analysis will use genetically modified mice. The proliferation of ambitious programs designed to use mice for phenogenomics has been met with alarm by comparative pathologists who note the lack of qualified genomic pathologists and of training programs in genomic pathology. While endocrine pathology offers a number of excellent examples of the contributions made by pathologists to the scientific literature, it also contains examples of the hazards of working with untrained, unwary personnel.