Morphomics: An integral part of systems biology of the human placenta

By analogy to other 'omes', the morphome is the totality of morphological features within a system and morphomics is the systematic study of those structures. Information about structure is required at multiple levels of resolution in order to understand better the processes by which a given system alters with time, experimental treatment or environmental insult. Therefore, morphomics research includes all imaging techniques at all levels of achievable resolution from gross anatomy and medical imaging, via optical and electron microscopy, to molecular characterisation. Quantification is an important element of all 'omics' studies and, because biological systems exist and operate in 3-dimensional (3D) space, precise descriptions of form, content and spatial relationships require the quantification of structure in 3D. These considerations are relevant to future study contributions to the Human Placenta Project.