“Omics” basically just studies that give you lots of quantitative data (measurements) characterizing *everything* that’s present in a sample. They typically use high-throughput techniques so you can get lots of data w/out “too” much work, but a lot of data requires lots of computational work to try to make sense of it! 

some common terms you might see…

• genomics – looks at DNA
  • sequences, function, organization etc.
  • epigenomics – looks at methylation, acetylation, etc.
  • metagenomics – looks at environmental samples 
• transcriptomics – looks at transcription (e.g. w/RNA-seq to measure mRNA levels)
• proteomics – looks at proteins (typically w/mass spec)
  • phosphoproteomics – looks at phosphorylation
• metabolomics – looks at metabolites (measures small biochemical molecules)
  • usually w/mass spec
  • these small molecules can be
    • precursors or building blocks for reactions (sugars, lipids etc.)
      • including modified forms
    • molecules formed as intermediates or breakdown products from biochemical processes
    • signalling molecules (hormones, etc.)

Those are just a taste of various kinds of things you can look for. There are a lot more! Mainly involving variations on those. 

And most of the omics stuff can be done at different “levels” including

• meta – environmental samples
• single cell (often abbreviated sc)
• spatial – looking at where things happen within a tissue or cell, etc. (e.g. looking at which cells in a tissue things are being transcribed in)
  • often involves fluorescence!