Molecular life sciences in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution: sequencing, multi-omics and artificial...

The onset of the Fourth Industrial Revolution has catalysed a fundamental shift in how research within the molecular life sciences is approached and undertaken. Over the past decade, a multitude of nascent enabling technologies have progressed to maturity and have become irreversibly embedded in laboratory practice. Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a mainstay within the molecular sciences, facilitating major advances across a multitude of sub-disciplines, including synthetic biology, industrial biotechnology and drug discovery. One area where this impact is being particularly felt is within multi-omics, where the marriage of AI with low-cost high-throughput sequencing is delivering unprecedented advances, allowing large and often complex datasets to be deconvoluted on timescales previously considered unimaginable. In this mini-review, we outline how the integration of AI into multi-omics has been realised and forecast future trajectories for research in this important area.