Multi-Omics Integration for Elucidating Herb–Gut Microbiota Interactions in Traditional Chinese Medicine

Authors

  • Grent Heward School of Information Technology, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA.
  • Pavel Alvaorez Department of Computer Science, University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA.
  • Hector L. Watkins Department of Computer Science, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA.
  • Davide M. Carpenter School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA.

Keywords:

multi-omics integration; gut microbiota; traditional Chinese medicine; systems pharmacology; network pharmacology; data governance; computational infrastructure

Abstract

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) exerts therapeutic effects through multi-component herbal formulations whose activities are mediated by host metabolic and immune networks and by biotransformations carried out by the gut microbiota. Multi-omics integration offers a system-level framework for disentangling these interactions, but the field still lacks robust architectures that connect genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, metabolomic, and metagenomic measurements with clinically interpretable outcomes. This paper develops a systematic analysis of multi-omics integration for herb-gut microbiota research. It reviews the conceptual foundations of TCM systems pharmacology, the analytical challenges posed by data heterogeneity and scale, and the structural trade-offs in current computational platforms. The discussion emphasizes governance, FAIR data management, reproducibility, fairness across populations and experimental modalities, and sustainable deployment. It further examines how network-based modeling, community detection, and integrative pipelines can link chemical complexity to microbial function. Although multi-omics data generation has accelerated, integrative frameworks often treat TCM and microbiome research as separate domains, leading to fragmented evidence and limited clinical translation. By framing herb-gut microbiota interactions as a socio-technical infrastructure problem rather than a purely molecular puzzle, the paper provides a forward-looking agenda for academic, clinical, and regulatory stakeholders.

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Published

2026-08-14

How to Cite

Grent Heward, Pavel Alvaorez, Hector L. Watkins, & Davide M. Carpenter. (2026). Multi-Omics Integration for Elucidating Herb–Gut Microbiota Interactions in Traditional Chinese Medicine. International Journal of Clinical and Translational Medicine, 1(1). Retrieved from https://ijctmed.org/index.php/home/article/view/183

Issue

Vol. 1 No. 1 (2026): International Journal of Clinical and Translational Medicine

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Articles

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