The Systems Medicine of Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome

Document Type

Review

Publication Date

1-1-2020

Description

This review will focus on a systems medicine approach to neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS). Systems medicine utilizes information gained from the application of “omics” technology and bioinformatics (1). The omic approaches we will emphasize include genomics, epigenomics, proteomics, and metabolomics. The goals of systems medicine are to provide clinically relevant and objective insights into disease diagnosis, prognosis, and stratification as well as pharmacological strategies and evidence-based individualized clinical guidance. Despite the increasing incidence of NAS and its societal and economic costs, there has been only a very modest emphasis on utilizing a systems medicine approach, and this has been primarily in the areas of genomics and epigenomics. As detailed below, proteomics and metabolomics hold great promise in advancing our knowledge of NAS and its treatment. Metabolomics, in particular, can provide a quantitative assessment of the exposome, which is a comprehensive picture of both internal and external environmental factors affecting health.

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