Biomarker Commons

Biomarker Commons aggregates the latest biomarker news and research focused on biomarker discovery, development and use.

A biomarker is an organic material that is used as an indicator of a biological state. Specifically, a biomarker is a molecular signature found in blood, other body fluids, or tissues that reflects a normal biologic process, pathogenic process or pharmacologic process to a therapeutic intervention. A biomarker that has been shown to have clinical validity, analytic validity and clinical utility can be used to identify the earliest stages of disease onset, diagnosis, prognosis, efficacy of a specific drug therapy, toxicological effects of a drug, or disease risk.

There are a number of biomarkers in use today, not only in experimental research but in the clinical setting.

• Translation biomarkers are used in both a preclinical (i.e. animal models) and clinical setting
• Early detection biomarkers are used to identify the earliest stages of disease onset
• Diagnostic biomarkers are used to identify the presence or absence of a specific disease state
• Staging biomarkers are used to distinguish between different stages of a chronic disorder
• Prognostic biomarkers are used to determine patient survival probability
• Disease biomarkers are related to a clinical outcome or measure of disease
• Predictive or efficacy biomarkers are used to predict the efficacy of a specific drug therapy
• Target biomarkers are used to determine the interaction of a drug or small molecule with its target
• Mechanism biomarkers are used to report on the downstream effects of a drug
• Toxicity biomarkers are used to determine the toxicological effects of drugs on an in vitro or in vivo system
• Surrogate biomarkers are regarded as valid substitutes for measuring clinical outcomes

Visual Representation of Biomarker Commons Content

Below is a tag cloud (generated June 2011) from the Biomarker Commons RSS feed, consisting of the top 100 terms organized alphabetically (a larger size indicates a greater frequency of use). Color and orientation are used simply for aesthetics. For a dynamically generated tag cloud of the entire site that can be used to navigate to individual stories, see the site tags.

Knowledge Curation

Biomarker Commons is curated by Walter Jessen, Ph.D., a computational biologist focused on biomarker discovery and prioritization. The Biomarker Commons Newsbot also frequently reposts press releases from within the industry.

A monthly news archive catalogs all stories.

Individual author archives can be accessed below:

• Author: Walter Jessen
• Author: Biomarker Commons Newsbot