Let's not forget the thinkers

• ‘Omics’ data can solve fundamental questions.
• Hypotheses from the pre-omics era should not be forgotten.

As ‘omics’ technologies become more accessible, enormous quantities of data are being generated about the genomes, proteomes, metabolomes, etc. of an increasing number of parasites. We therefore need to think very carefully about how these resources will contribute to our basic understanding of parasitism, and beyond the ‘knee-jerk’ outcomes of new vaccines and therapeutics. The lasting legacy of the ‘omics’ era may lie in addressing the fundamental biological hypotheses generated by parasitologists 40–50 years ago when direct observational studies were a feature of parasitological research. We illustrate this with reference to the cestode parasite Echinococcus and the far-reaching questions posed by Desmond Smyth.