biomarkers

A new way to predict breast cancer survival

A researcher who used to work in digital television has just led a team of Columbia University engineers to win the Sage Bionetworks / DREAM Breast Cancer Prognosis Challenge.

Dimitris Anastassiou, who is now a systems biologist (meaning he investigates interactions within biological systems), reports in the April 17 issue of Science Translational Medicine that his team's winning computation model is extremely predictive of breast cancer survival.

Before the challenge, Anastassiou and his team identified what they call "attractor metagenes," which are genetic signatures expressed in almost the exact same way across many types of cancer. Their new … Read more

Brain scan might determine your age within a year

If you're prone to lying about your age, steer clear of structural magnetic resonance imaging. When used to scan your brain, no matter how good (or bad) you may look, a new imaging technique that uses MRI won't lie. In fact, it probably knows your age to the exact year.

"We have uncovered a 'developmental clock' of sorts within the brain -- a biological signature of maturation that captures age differences quite well, regardless of other kinds of differences that exist across individuals," Timothy Brown of the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine says in a news release.… Read more

Cleveland Clinic predicts top medical breakthrough of 2011

This week, at Cleveland Clinic's 2010 Medical Innovation Summit, the top 10 medical breakthroughs of 2011 have been predicted, with the new brain imaging compound AV-45--which is poised to help early detection of Alzheimer's--taking the top spot.

Alzheimer's gets its name from German psychiatrist Alois Alzheimer, who began lecturing in the early 1900s about the plaques and tangles he'd found in the post-mortem brain tissue of a 51-year-old patient.

To this day, diagnosing the disease while a patient is still alive is tricky, and there is still no cure. But there have been several breakthroughs … Read more

HealthLinx identifies novel ovarian cancer biomarker

Australian diagnostics company HealthLinx Limited, along with researchers at the University of Liverpool, have just gotten word from the journal Clinical Science that their manuscript detailing the identification of a novel biomarker in ovarian cancer patients has been accepted for publication.

This means the company is now cleared to reveal the biomarker: anterior gradient protein 2 (AGR2). HealthLinx says its performance will be further tested in a forthcoming international biomarker study led by the company. Based on early data, however, this biomarker could increase the performance of the company's OvPlex diagnostic test to greater than 97 percent accuracy.

Here … Read more