In medicine, as in any other life sciences discipline, research should start by raising
a question (hypothesis) to solve a problem. Then the scientist should select
the most appropriated method(s) to answer the question and solve the dilemma.
The obtained intermediate and final results may answer the question or may raise
additional or new questions. It closes the loop of research and discovery.
Quite often, the development of new methods offers the opportunity to raise
new questions and sometimes, although not well accepted, the application of new
methods without initial and predefined questions offers new data that can be
used to raise many valid interrogations. It is like entering the research circle at a
different entry point.
For example, sequencing genomes has currently provides numerous valuable
data and can be considered to be the application of new methods without predetermined
questions – non hypothesis driven research. In fact, many “omic” experiments,
such as genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, and metabolomic studies,
can be classified into this category. Even without well-defined medically driven
hypotheses, the spectacular and exponential development of the “omic science”
has been an impressive driving force for large-scale method development. Currently,
scientists have the range of many powerful tools available to answer very
well-defined, pertinent, and difficult hypothesis driven research.