Proteomic Strategy for Cancer Biomarker Discovery

Worldwide over 25 million people have cancer and more§than 10 §million die from it each year. There is a growing§focus on cancer §diagnosis because accurate and timely detection of§the disease §means a better chance for patient survival and lower§treatment §costs. Today s diagnostic screening methods are often§inadequate §due to their low accuracy. So far, the high§complexity of blood §prohibited the sensitive and high throughput§profiling of patient §sample sets large enough to reliably detect§cancer-indicating §differences. Yet despite intensive interest and§investment, only a §few §cancer biomarkers are used in clinical practice.§This book will give you an overview of the§establishment of a new §strategy for the discovery, verification and§validation of cancer §protein biomarkers. Thereby different technological§and biological §aspects are discussed. Finally, the preliminary§results of a prostate §cancer study, which resulted in the identification of§a panel of new §protein biomarker superior to the current standard§PSA (prostate §specific antigen), are shown.