Research in signal transduction aims to identify the functions of different signaling pathways in physiological and pathological states. Traditional techniques using biochemical, genetic or cell biological approaches have made important contributions to our understanding of cellular signaling. However, the single--gene approach does not take into account the whole complexity of cell signaling. With the availability of OMICs--techniques, great progress has been made in understanding signaling networks. OMICs approaches can be classified into two categories: "molecular profiling", including genomic--, proteomic--, post--translational modification--and interactome--profiling; and "molecular perturbation", including genetic and functional perturbations.Due to the ever--growing field of method development to characterize cellular processes on genomic and proteomic levels and in many other dimensions, it has become a challenge to select and apply the appropriate methods suitable for addressing a specific biological question. In this perspective, we will describe some selected OMICs--techniques and discuss their applicability to cell signaling research.3