As life science increasingly becomes an information science, many of the emerging fields of large-scale, data-rich biology are designated by the suffix '-omics' and the related neologism '-ome'. One of the newer members of the '-ome' family is discussed in this month's issue of Nature Reviews Microbiology.

The antibiotic resistome comprises all of the antibiotic resistance genes and their precursors in both pathogenic and non-pathogenic microorganisms. As discussed by Gerard Wright on page 175, antibiotic resistance genes encoded by pathogens constitute only a tiny fraction of the resistome. Recent research indicates that environmental bacteria are often more intrinsically resistant to antibiotics than the common aetiological agents of infectious disease. Indeed, as argued by Wright, the environmental resistome probably represents the source for the antibiotic resistance mechanisms that are active in clinical isolates — a reservoir of diversity that has been plundered with greater frequency over the past 60 years of widespread antibiotic use. This analysis reveals that the antibiotic resistome is comprehensive, adaptable and extensive and, if the effective lifetimes of current and future antimicrobial agents are to be usefully extended, recognition of this diversity will be vitally important.

A key development that would help microbiologists achieve this goal is the ability to continuously survey all organisms from all infections from all clinical laboratories for their susceptibility to antibiotics. Although not currently possible, the application of microfabrication techniques to microbiology has considerable potential to address this issue by providing the technology for isolating and analysing large numbers of cells in parallel, under identical conditions. On page 209, George Whitesides and colleagues review the tools and techniques of microfabrication, and how they are poised to transform the study of microbial physiology and behaviour.