Biomarkers—a pot of gold or a can of worms?

Abstract

Biomarkers are biological agents used as indicators of biological states. In clinical applications, biomarkers reflect the presence, severity, or progression of disease states. They may also predict risk or responsiveness of a disease to a given treatment. There has been increasingly intense research interest in biomarkers, yet their translation into routine clinical use is lagging. To stimulate communication and cross-fertilization, the 2nd World Congress on Biomarkers & Clinical Research was held in Baltimore, MD, USA in 2011. The symposium covered a broad range of basic and applied biomarker research with the intent to facilitate bench-to-bedside developments. Sessions discussed DNA-based, proteomic, and blood-borne markers. The presentations covered biomarkers for cancer, other various diseases, and toxicological agents. Other topics included biomarker data assimilation, validation, standardization and quality control, as well as molecular imaging and informatics. New high-throughput assays, model systems and emerging technologies give reasons to hope for further rapid progress in the field.

Keywords: :

• biomarkers
• cancer
• data assimilation
• diabetes
• expression profiling
• informatics
• toxicology
• tuberculosis
• validation

Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest

Jeremy Warren is CEO of NanoSight Limited.

Note

(1) For details of the conference, please refer to the conference proceedings that can be accessed at http://www.omicsonline.org/biomarkers2011/pdfs/Biomarkers_book.pdf. (2) The views presented in this article do not necessarily reflect those of the Food and Drug Administration.

Notes

† Member, Organizing Committee ‟Biomarkers in clinical research — 2011.” Department of Pharmacology; Tulane University Health Sciences Center; School of Medicine; New Orleans, LA USA