Opinion: Confounded Cancer Markers

Prognostic signatures have become popular tools in cancer research, but it turns out signatures made of random genes are prognostic as well.

| 3 min read

Register for free to listen to this article
Listen with Speechify
0:00
3:00
Share

ISTOCK, ALENGO

Ethic guidelines drastically limit experiments on human subjects. Hence, the fundamental mechanisms of human diseases are mostly studied in vitro or in animal models. These are only substitutes for understanding human physiology and disease. Proving that a mechanism responsible for disease progression in a model system is also relevant to human diseases—not to mention then translating it into a new therapeutic—is a major bottleneck in biomedicine. In the end, only clinical interventions on human will bridge models and human disease.

One approach is to look for correlations. If you can show that patients with tumors expressing, for example, stem cell markers have a much worse prognosis than those without them, that would suggest that stem cells are involved in human disease progression. This line of ...

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of

The Scientist Logo
Receive full access to more than 35 years of archives, as well as TS Digest, digital editions of The Scientist, feature stories, and much more!
Already a member? Login Here

Keywords

Meet the Author

  • Vincent Detours

    This person does not yet have a bio.
Share
3D illustration of a gold lipid nanoparticle with pink nucleic acid inside of it. Purple and teal spikes stick out from the lipid bilayer representing polyethylene glycol.
February 2025, Issue 1

A Nanoparticle Delivery System for Gene Therapy

A reimagined lipid vehicle for nucleic acids could overcome the limitations of current vectors.

View this Issue
Considerations for Cell-Based Assays in Immuno-Oncology Research

Considerations for Cell-Based Assays in Immuno-Oncology Research

Lonza
An illustration of animal and tree silhouettes.

From Water Bears to Grizzly Bears: Unusual Animal Models

Taconic Biosciences
Sex Differences in Neurological Research

Sex Differences in Neurological Research

bit.bio logo
New Frontiers in Vaccine Development

New Frontiers in Vaccine Development

Sino

Products

Tecan Logo

Tecan introduces Veya: bringing digital, scalable automation to labs worldwide

Explore a Concise Guide to Optimizing Viral Transduction

A Visual Guide to Lentiviral Gene Delivery

Takara Bio
Inventia Life Science

Inventia Life Science Launches RASTRUM™ Allegro to Revolutionize High-Throughput 3D Cell Culture for Drug Discovery and Disease Research

An illustration of differently shaped viruses.

Detecting Novel Viruses Using a Comprehensive Enrichment Panel

Twist Bio