Biomarkers, Cancer Therapy & Clinical Research

Omics Technologies in Biomarkers Discovery and Validation

Biomarkers play a critical role in disease diagnosis and treatment, especially for the early detection of cancer, to enable screening of asymptomatic populations. Recent omics technologies, such as Transcriptomics, genomics and proteomics approaches besides Metabolomics are accelerating the rate of biomarker discovery. The incorporation of techniques like microarray data analysis, computational biology, data mining methods, Transcriptomics and profiling techniques are playing a crucial role in the validation of biomarkers. Since the Human Genome Project was completed in April 2003, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have contributed toward a greater understanding of the genetic basis of complex diseases and advances in high-throughput technologies. This has enabled researchers to rapidly map the genome of vertebrates, invertebrates and pathogens through cost-effective methods. The applications of Bioinformatics tool in biomarker research is the current emerging field promoting better diagnosable parameters. The global omics market was valued at nearly $2.8 billion in 2011, nearly $3.2 billion in 2012, and is forecast to grow to nearly $15.5 billion by 2022 after increasing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.7%. The omics technology segment holds the largest share of ~75% of the biomarker discovery market, primarily due to the increase in adoption of proteomics and genomics technologies, globally. There are several approaches in biomarkers discovery and validation like genomics and proteomic approaches, Microarray data analysis, Data mining methods and Transcriptomics and profiling techniques by making use of Computational biology and Application of Bioinformatics in biomarker discovery.