Some biomarkers are easier to find than others.  Once a class of molecules has been noticed, and the assay methodology to measure their levels has been optimized, data rapidly accumulates.  Related molecules frequently pop up (often as a result of artifacts appearing in the assays under certain conditions or when particular samples are analysed).  Its

It is ten years this week since the Total Scientific team, together with our collaborators at Imperial College in London submitted the first large-scale clinical metabolomics study for publication in Nature Medicine.  We applied proton NMR spectroscopy to serum samples collected from patients with coronary heart disease (defined by angiography), as well as control subjects

The increase in the use of the term biomarker is a recent one.  When one looks back at the use of this term in the literature over the last fifty years, there was an explosive increase in its use in the 1980s and 1990s, and it continues to grow today.  However, biomarker research as we

Back in September the US Food and Drug Administration announced that it was going to delay its publication of draft guidance on the qualification of drug development tools, originally promised for the summer.  However, this draft guidance was finally published at the end of October.  While still in draft form, the Guidance substantially expands on

It feels like every other day that another putative biomarker is identified that will predict presence or extent of some disease or another, usually with an absurdly low p value.  So, if these biomarkers are so common, why is the subsequent commercialisation and clinical use of these potential diagnostics so difficult to achieve? I believe

In this kick-off article to the new Total Scientific biomarker blog, we discuss the potential for biomarkers to improve the R&D productivity of the pharmaceutical industry. Please read the full article here