Can Biomarker Initiatives Stay on Target?

With broader biomarker applications in their sights, pharmaceutical companies and academics are striving to collaborate, the lead story(below) in our feature on biomarkers reports. Nobel laureate Lee Hartwell explains what the fruit of such collaborations could be in hisVision. And those involved with mass spectrometrydebatehow powerful this discovery engine really is.

Thriving tumors burn glucose and show up as bright spots on positron emission tomography screens. Those bright spots can disappear a week after a patient begins chemotherapy, signaling possible remission. Waiting for demonstrable tumor shrinkage on computed tomography scans takes another six months. Seeing whether a patient actually lives longer could take years.

Usually, changes in positron emission tomography (PET) results are not dramatic enough to be seen by the naked eye, says Gregory Sorensen, a radiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). The signal must be interpreted through a series of calculations gauging the concentration of a radioactive tracer, ...