The one-size-fits-all approach to therapies is quickly becoming a thing of the past, as drug developers begin stepping up to the challenge of personalized medicine, and regulatory agencies scramble to keep up. As the search for new biological indicators of disease heats up, researchers are looking far and wide for new markers of disease and of response to treatment.
Technologies that probe genes, proteins, the brain, and the body have become increasingly sensitive and efficient, expanding the search for new biomarkers beyond the components within blood and urine, and into diverse new areas, from breath to saliva to brain activity.
Scientists studying traumatic brain injury need a biomarker that is more timely than the proteins detected in postmortem exams. Others are examining people’s breath, which is thought to contain molecular prints of asthma, cystic fibrosis, and even cancer. Researchers know that individuals treated for depression show altered patterns of brain ...
