New biomarker method could increase the number of diagnostic tests ...( A team of researchers including seve...)

A team of researchers, including several from UCSF, has demonstrated that a new method for detecting and quantifying protein biomarkers in body fluids may ultimately make it possible to screen multiple biomarkers in hundreds of patient samples, thus ensuring that only the strongest biomarker candidates will advance down the development pipeline. The researchers have developed a method to increase accuracy in detecting real cancer biomarkers that is highly reproducible across laboratories and a variety of instruments so that cancer can be detected in its earliest stages.

The results of the Clinical Proteomic Technology Assessment for Cancer (CPTAC) study, which is sponsored by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) appear online June 28, 2009, in Nature Biotechnology.

From UCSF, the co-authors include Susan J. Fisher, PhD, a professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences and Faculty Director of the Sandler-Moore Mass Spectrometry (SMMS) Core Facility; Simon Allen, PhD, an Assistant Researcher in Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences; Steven C. Hall, a professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences and Director of Operations of the SMMS Core Facility; Eric B. Johansen, PhD, Laboratory Manager of the SMMS Core Facility; and Richard K. Niles, PhD, Bioinformaticist in the SMMS Core Facility. Co-authors from the Buck Institute for Age Research who are a part of the UCSF CPTAC team include Bradford Gibson, PhD, Professor and Director of the Chemistry Core; Michael P. Cusack, Intern; Jason M. Held, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow' and Birgit Schilling, Staff Scientist. Drs Fisher and Gibson and Joe Gray (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) are Co-PIs of the UCSF portion of the CPTAC.

"These findings are significant because they provide a potential solution for eliminating one of the major hurdles in validating protein biomarkers for clinical use. Thousands o
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