Modern biology has a lot of ‘omes’. The genome-all the genes that go to make up an organism-is a familiar idea. The proteome-all the different proteins-is becoming so. But there are also the transcriptome (RNA), the glycome (sugars), the lipidome (fats) and the metabolome (all the miscellaneous odds and ends not covered by the others). And then there is the bibliome-all the mentions in research papers of known biomolecules. There are now so many of these papers, and the databases linking them are so good, that it is possible to use scientific methods to investigate the bibliome in its own right, just as any of the other, wetter ‘omes’ may be investigated. Which is exactly what a group of researchers from Peking University, led by Wei Liping, have done to get at the biochemical heart of drug addiction. Dr Wei and her colleagues wanted to answer three questions. First, what are the genes and biochemical pathways in addiction? Second, does addiction to different substances involve the same core biochemical mechanisms? Third, does anything in those mechanisms explain why addiction is so hard to shake off? Many people, of course, have asked these questions before, and partial answers have […]