BIOMARKERS – ITS ROLE IN MEDICINE

Biomarker is a measurable indicator of the severity or presence of some disease state. It is introduced into an organism as a means to examine organ function or other aspects of health. Biomarkers play a major role in medicinal biology. They help in early diagnosis, disease prevention, drug target identification, drug response etc. Several biomarkers have been identified for many diseases such as cancer, cardiac diseases, nutritional epidemiology, etc. Biomarkers play a significant role in cancer prognosis, diagnosis and treatment. With discovery efforts on-going the next phase towards conversion will involve validation. This includes the steps needed to manage the new treatment model from treating clinical symptoms to targeting genomic pathways. Cardiac biomarkers are substances that are released into the blood when the heart is damaged or stressed. Measurements of these biomarkers are used to help diagnose acute coronary syndrome (ACS) and cardiac ischemia, conditions associated with insufficient blood flow to the heart. Diet is of key importance in affecting the risk of most chronic diseases in man. The introduction of biomarkers to calibrate the measurement error in dietary reports, and as additional measures of exposure, is a significant development in the effort to improve estimates of the magnitude of the contribution of diet in affecting individual disease risks in populations.