In the past 70 years, epidemiology has gone through asubstantial development of both methodology and moresophisticated analyses with determinant- and disease-specific elements. Despite the discussion earlier in thisjournal as to whether the duality of epidemiology’sembrace of both research methods and content-based topicsis a positive development [1, 2], it shows at least thatepidemiology as a discipline is able to re-invent itself andto adapt to the rapid scientific evolution which currentlytakes place. Whereas the methodological ‘toolkit’ keeps itssolid basis in cohort- and case-control designs, determi-nant-oriented genetic epidemiology and pharmacoepi-demiology, and disease-oriented cardiovascular andinfectious diseases epidemiology are examples of branch-ing within one discipline. While the start of epidemiologyhad its main focus on hypothesis-testing concerning theassociation between determinants and disease as well asrisk estimation, the importance of hypothesis-generatingstudies is increasing. A nice example is the technique ofgenome-wide association studies which led to an explosionof discoveries in genetic epidemiology, also by a newmodel of collaborative science [3]. However, genes remainwhile drugs come and disappear again from human society