Translating transcriptomics into clinical practice: Utilizing gene expression patterns for advanced patient phenotyping and stratification in atherosclerosis

This chapter aims to provide suggestions for transcriptomic-based study designs focused primarily on atherosclerotic plaque tissues, spanning from how to formulate an initial hypothesis and research aims, via technical considerations, sample preparations, and bioinformatic analyses, toward more complex ethical issues. The second part of this chapter ventures into the rationale for combining transcriptomic data with various forms of plaque imaging, methods for multimodal data integrations and finally, the clinical applications and future implications of this research.