From the Editor's Desk: Systems Science 2010–2020, and Post-COVID-19

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OMICS: A Journal of Integrative BiologyVol. 25, No. 2 EditorialsFree AccessFrom the Editor's Desk: Systems Science 2010–2020, and Post-COVID-19Vural ÖzdemirVural ÖzdemirAddress correspondence to: Vural Özdemir, MD, PhD, DABCP, Editor-in-Chief, OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology, New Rochelle, NY 10801, USA E-mail Address: [email protected]E-mail Address: [email protected]OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology, New Rochelle, New York, USA.Search for more papers by this authorPublished Online:10 Feb 2021https://doi.org/10.1089/omi.2021.0002AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB Permissions & CitationsPermissionsDownload CitationsTrack CitationsAdd to favorites Back To Publication ShareShare onFacebookXLinked InRedditEmail The world is not a solid continent of facts sprinkled by a few lakes of uncertainties, but a vast ocean of uncertainties speckled by a few islands of calibrated and stabilized forms.Bruno Latour (2005)OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology is a rigorously peer-reviewed systems science journal with over two decades of legacy in the biomedical literature. Each month, the OMICS table of contents offers systems thinking at its best, and presents the latest multiomics and integrative biology theory and applications in planetary health, ecology, and society. The journal addresses systems science and medicine from "cell to society," follows a horizon scanning approach to stay ahead of the innovation curve, and identifies current scholarship and creative applications in medicine, ecology, and engineering. This anticipatory approach to science and editing is implemented in ways informed by critical theory of technology, the state of the art in science governance and publication ethics, and, above all, social justice in planetary health and society.As we begin a new year amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, it is timely to briefly recall the past decade of systems science to anticipate what might be ahead of us. I have served as associate editor (2009–2012) and editor-in-chief (2013-present) for the journal over the past decade. In the late 1990s, I had the good fortune to work with mentors such as the late Werner Kalow and Laszlo Endrenyi in Toronto, to whom I am grateful for their astute vision in science and the critical studies of individual variability in response to medicines. For this editorial analysis, I shall, therefore, draw from my experiences over the past three decades as a physician scientist, editor, and writer in critical policy studies.For starters, human health is inextricably linked to the health of ecosystems, biodiversity, plants, and the nonhuman animals with whom we share the planet (Springer, 2020; Van Beinum, 2019). "One Health" and related conceptual frames have long underscored the need for a postanthropocentric understanding of health, and the need to consider the biological, social, and political determinants of health synchronously (Özdemir, 2020). Decades of research firmly supports the idea that scientific discovery and education beyond a narrow technology focus are essential in the 21st century (Barad, 2007; Benessia et al., 2016; Frodeman, 2020; Latour, 2005; Özdemir, 2019; Ravetz, 2016; Sarewitz, 2016; Sclove, 2020; Thorp, 2020).Over the past decade, OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology has contributed to a significant broadening in scope of systems science scholarship across the technical, social, ecological, and planetary health dimensions. The journal advocated for an integrated sociotechnical lens from within the epistemic fortress of science. Importantly, this interdisciplinary commitment helped to contextualize the linkages between the contexts and contents of medical research, something that is vital for systems science to be broadly relevant, experiential, democratic, and socially just. There have been many success stories and discoveries concerning multiomics frontiers. These were featured in regular monthly and special issues, for example, on precision medicine, glycomics, and many others. The journal strived to be a voice for diversity in science and published scholarly studies of authors from around the world.The journal has featured cutting edge innovations on diagnostics and therapeutics for common human diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, cancers, diabetes, cardiovascular and infectious diseases, personalized medicine, and visual health, to name a few. Regenerative medicine that offers hope for numerous health problems was buttressed, for example, with studies in a preclinical model organism, the amphibian axolotl. Drug repurposing research enabled by omics technologies, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, leading frontiers of therapeutics innovation in the current climate of the COVID-19 pandemic were featured on many occasions.The journal rooted for new approaches that broaden cancer drug design and discovery by considering both the tumor and its microenvironment. Omics discoveries made in psychiatry were featured. Amid these breakthroughs, the literature on public health has expanded to a new context, planetary health (Horton et al., 2014), which was supported by the journal as a premier systems science publication on human health and ecology.New postgenomic technologies, metabolomics and metagenomics, and applications in ecology, nutrition, plant omics, food engineering, and the study of planetary biodiversity have been cornerstones of the editorial scope, not least because human health is inextricably intertwined with the health of other animals and planetary ecosystems, as already noted.Horizon scanning analyses of the microbiome science, and the emerging field of clinical pharmacomicrobiomics impacting on modern drug discovery and development, have been integral components of the editorial scope.A New Frontier: Digital Determinants of HealthThe COVID-19 pandemic has once again provided evidence that science and health care should be planetary public goods, and that biological and political determinants of health ought to be considered in tandem to build the vitally important triple capacity of scale–speed–surge in response to ecological crises (Kickbusch et al., 2020; Von Schomberg and Özdemir, 2020; Wade, 2020). Also, digital determinants of health emerged as a factor that shaped access to health care and the latest information on the new coronavirus over the past year. Digital determinants of health laid bare the long-standing structural inequities in planetary health and society as well. In this sense, digital determinants of health are an emerging subfield of the political determinants of health that warrants attention to ensure a truly systems approach in health sciences.OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology rose to the challenges of the pandemic and published a timely special issue on digital health in May 2020. A second special issue followed in December 2020 on plant omics, food engineering, and the new frontiers in nutrigenomics. Both digital health and nutrigenomics call for a systems science approach to innovation, and are directly relevant to planetary health.The volume of submissions and the readership of the journal continued to grow during the past year. Our rate of article rejection remained consistently high over the past decade while the editorial team strived for timely editorial decisions. This was supported by in-depth peer review of the articles and a commitment to publish only the highest quality research.Critical Governance of Emerging Technology and InnovationIn the next decade, artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, and other digital technologies will play increasingly important roles in systems science. At the same time, we ought to be mindful of unforeseen and untoward impacts, and the critical governance aspects of extreme digital connectivity on a planetary scale (Özdemir and Hekim, 2018). Since the 1980s, technology policy and governance frames have followed an overly instrumental product-focused commodification approach without adequate attention to the structural and historical power asymmetries embedded in the funding and practice of science. This has led to blunting of the cutting edge of technology policy, not only in science but also in social sciences and humanities.We need to return to an old (and yet timeless) question posed by the Roman poet Juvenal in the first century AD: "when Plato (more exactly, Juvenal) asked who guards the guardians, he was questioning whether any group can be trusted to look past its own interests for the common good" (Frodeman, 2019). It is time we broaden the question "who guards the guardians?" beyond the scientific community, to actors in science policy. This will ensure that science policy extends beyond the narrow question of "which social issues emerge from a new technology?" and includes "who should be framing science and technology policy, and why?"Questioning the framing of a body of knowledge, before accepting its veracity and legitimacy, is a necessary new skillset in the 21st century. We have previously described this skillset as "epistemic competence," the ability and willingness to examine the frames and framings in which knowledge is produced (Özdemir et al., 2020).Ultimately, with the rise of ecological determinants of health as a new frontier of systems science, we need to create a new social contract on health for all sentient beings on the planet Earth (Albert, 2021; McDonald, 2019; Özdemir et al., 2020; Von Schomberg and Özdemir, 2020).A New Decade and a Bright FutureSystems science and integrative biology have bright futures in the 21st century and will continue to illuminate medical innovation, health care, and ecology scholarship. Having served as editor for OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology for over a decade, I am thankful to many scholars, authors, and reviewers who contributed to the journal's contents. OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology will continue to be a home base for scholars from around the world with a keen interest in systems science, integrative biology, and critically informed cutting edge scholarship.DisclaimerThe views are the personal opinions of the author only.Author Disclosure StatementThe author declares there are no conflicting financial interests.Funding InformationNo funding was received for this article.ReferencesAlbert MJ. (2021). Beyond continuationism: Climate change, economic growth, and the future of world (dis)order. Cambridge Rev Int Aff. Epub in advance October 12, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2020.1825334 Google ScholarBarad K. (2007). Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham & London: Duke University Press. Google ScholarBenessia A, Funtowicz S, Giampietro M, et al. (2016). The Rightful Place of Science: Science on the Verge. Tempe, AZ: Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes. 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Current Affairs, 1st October. www.currentaffairs.org/2019/10/we-need-a-fair-way-to-end-infinite-growth. Accessed January 1, 2021. Google ScholarÖzdemir V. (2019). Not all intelligence is artificial: Data science, automation, and AI meet HI. OMICS 23, 67–69. Link, Google ScholarÖzdemir V. (2020). "One Nature": A new vocabulary and frame for governance innovation in post-COVID-19 planetary health. OMICS 24, 645–648. Link, Google ScholarÖzdemir V, and Hekim N. (2018). Birth of industry 5.0: Making sense of big data with artificial intelligence, "The Internet of Things" and next-generation technology policy. OMICS 22, 65–76. Link, Google ScholarÖzdemir V, Springer S, Garvey CK, and Bayram M. (2020). COVID-19 health technology governance, epistemic competence, and the future of knowledge in an uncertain world. OMICS 24, 451–453. Link, Google ScholarRavetz J. (2016). How should we treat science's growing pains? The Guardian, June 8, 2016. Google ScholarSarewitz D. (2016). Saving science. 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A conversation with the theorist about her new book, The Force of Nonviolence, and the need for global solidarity in the pandemic World. The Nation, May 13, 2020. Google ScholarAbbreviations UsedCOVID-19coronavirus disease 2019FiguresReferencesRelatedDetailsCited byThe biote-bot hybrid. The ultimate biothreat merging nanobots, AI-enabled cybernetics and synthetic biology29 August 2023 | Future Medicine AI, Vol. 12Historical microbiology: researching past bioevents by integrating scholarship (re)sources with paleomicrobiology assetsFuture Microbiology, Vol. 18, No. 10Regulation and legislationDigital Is Political: Why We Need a Feminist Conceptual Lens on Determinants of Digital Health Vural Özdemir8 April 2021 | OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology, Vol. 25, No. 4 Volume 25Issue 2Feb 2021 InformationCopyright 2021, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishersTo cite this article:Vural Özdemir.From the Editor's Desk: Systems Science 2010–2020, and Post-COVID-19.OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology.Feb 2021.73-75.http://doi.org/10.1089/omi.2021.0002Published in Volume: 25 Issue 2: February 10, 2021Online Ahead of Print:January 27, 2021 TopicsCOVID-19 PDF download

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