AI for Phenomics: When Images Meet Molecules
The Visible Layer of Biology While genomics reads the book of life and proteomics predicts the machinery that executes it, phenomics observes the actual outcome—the visible traits, cellular morphologies, and clinical presentations that emerge from the interplay of genes, environment, and chance. It is the layer we can see, measure, and often directly connect to disease. Yet phenomics has historically been the poor cousin of molecular omics. High-throughput sequencing transformed genomics and transcriptomics into data-rich disciplines, while phenotyping remained labor-intensive, subjective, and low-throughput. A pathologist examining tissue slides. A physician recording clinical observations. A biologist peering through a microscope. ...