Like many words, the term "immunomics" equates to different ideas
contingent on context. For a brief span, immunomics meant the study of
the Immunome, of which there were, in turn, several different
definitions. A now largely defunct meaning rendered the Immunome as the
set of antigenic peptides or immunogenic proteins within a single
microorganism - be that virus, bacteria, fungus, or parasite - or
microbial population, or antigenic or allergenic proteins and peptides
derived from the environment as a whole, containing also proteins from
eukaryotic sources. However, times have changed and the meaning of
immunomics has also changed. Other newer definitions of the Immunome
have come to focus on the plethora of immunological receptors and
accessory molecules that comprise the host immune arsenal. Today,
Immunomics or immunogenomics is now most often used as a synonym for
high-throughput genome-based immunology. This is the study of aspects of
the immune system using high-throughput techniques within a conc- tual
landscape borne of both clinical and biophysical thinking.