Gene patents may hamper innovations in patient care

Gene patents are discoveries, not inventions and patenting discoveries may hamper future innovations in developing cost-effective patient care products and services. Banning gene patents may offer incredible opportunities for innovations that can attract investments to create sustainable entrepreneurial establishments and scientific jobs, which may be significantly higher that gene patents alone can offer. In contrast, granting gene patents may lead to innovation bottlenecks that favor fewer inventions, restricted entrepreneurial initiatives, limited job growth, and non-competitive monopoly.  Read the full blog: http://www.sciclips.com/sciclips/blogArticle.do?id=1025&blog=Gene%20patents%20may%20hamper%20innovations%20in%20patient%20care    

Cancer Biomarker Strategy to Develop Companion Diagnostics for Predicting Prescription Drug Induced Tumors – Analysis using pioglitazone (Actos) and bladder cancer

Cancer biomarkers can be used for developing assays for clinical diagnosis, identifying patient’s response to a particular drug, optimizing personalized drug treatment regimen (drug dose, drug treatment schedule etc.), monitoring the efficacy of treatment (disease stage, tumor progression, tumor recurrence etc.) and in cancer theranostics. With the growing trend towards the advancement of personalized medicine concept, companion diagnostic tools may play a significant role in patient stratification by identifying patients with positive clinical response to an existing or novel treatment method. However, current limitations in identifying life-threatening side effects of therapeutic drugs may have negative impact on developing efficient drug therapy strategies, often difficult to identify short or long term side effects of drugs during clinical trials. Therefore, there is a need for developing predictive methods and assays for identifying secondary disease causing side effects of drugs. We propose disease specific diagnostic biomarkers as an attractive tool for predicting the occurrence of secondary diseases from a specific drug treatment method. In this blog, we tried to explore the potential of cancer diagnostic biomarkers for predicting therapeutic drug (non anti-cancer drugs) induced cancer occurrence in patients. For identifying biomolecules that might be potentially associated with pioglitazone induced bladder cancer development in patients, hypothesis driven functional integration and identification of biomolecules, incorporating traditional pathway analysis, linked to bladder cancer specific diagnostic biomarkers and drug target (PPARgamma) were adopted. Link to the full blog article: http://www.sciclips.com/sciclips/blogArticle.do?id=1024&blog=Cancer%20Biomarker%20Strategy%20to%20Develop%20Companion%20Diagnostics%20for%20Predicting%20Prescription%20Drug%20Induced%20Tumors%20-%20Analysis%20using%20pioglitazone%20%28Actos%29%20and%20bladder%20cancer"

Metabolon vs. Stemina – Are Biomarkers Patents can be Considered as "True Inventions"?

This blog critically analyzes the limitations and pitfalls in biomarker patent process. According to the argument made in this blog, most of the biomarkers patents may not have commercial prospective, though patents are intend to protect the right to manufacture and sell invented products, due to the fact that these biomarkers were identified and characterized without following solid scientific principles and demonstrating clinical applications, which are indispensable for developing commercially viable products. Claimed inventions proposed in patents without adequate scientific research driven supporting evidences and reasonable interpretation of experimental results, as oppose to peer reviewed scientific publications, may not have any scientific value or may not be scientifically acceptable. These patents can also be scientifically mistaken and these patents may not only preclude innovation in biomarker discovery but also hinder the development of low-cost patient care diagnostics products.  Read more: >> Metabolon vs. Stemina – Are Biomarkers Patents can be Considered as “True Inventions”?

Neuropsychiatric disease biomarker and drug discovery assays and protocols

Launched an open access database of neuropsychiatric disease biomarker and drug discovery assays and protocols. The listed protocols are extracted from and linked to patents and journal articles. The innovative representation of protocols in this database will be a useful tool for idea/concept generation for developing innovative approaches for neuropsychiatric disease biomarker and drug discovery research. Please follow this link to see the complete list of protocols: Neuropsychiatric disease biomarker and drug discovery assays and protocols

Related blogs:

How to Identify Clinically Successful Biomarkers?

Strategies for Rational and Personalized Cancer Biomarker Discovery

Cancer Theranostics - Potential Applications of Cancer Biomarker Database

  Potential Use of Drug Response-Efficacy Biomarkers for Predicting Life-Threatening Disease Causing Side Effects of Therapeutic Drugs

Related tools:

Comprehensive cancer biomarker database with companion diagnostics pathway

Bioprotocols database
 

How to Identify Clinically Successful Biomarkers?

The decisive goal of clinical biomarker discovery should be intended for developing high quality and low-cost disease detection/monitoring assays with high diagnostic accuracy. Innovative approaches are warranted for the discovery of clinical biomarkers, with faster bench to clinics timeline, to provide high quality and efficient patient care.  At the same time, if we continue with the strategic and technological approaches that are currently being adopted for biomarker discovery and validation, most likely, it may take several years to find clinically viable biomarker/s for complex diseases like cancer or neurodegenerative or autoimmune or other human diseases. Therefore, an ideal clinical biomarker discovery platform, which can lead to the development of reliable and robust clinical diagnostics assays, should adopt an integrated approach that consists of comprehensive understanding of patients’ phenotypic, genetic and socio-environmental characteristics as well as biological and functional relevance of all biomolecules. In order to achieve these goals, two models for the discovery, selection and validation of clinically viable biomarkers are proposed in this scientific blog.  Read the full blog: http://www.sciclips.com/sciclips/blogArticle.do?id=1022&blog=How%20to%20Identify%20Clinically%20Successful%20Biomarkers?

Strategies for Rational and Personalized Cancer Biomarker Discovery

This scientific blog critically analyzes potential complexities associated with current biomarker discovery approaches. According to the scientific arguments that have been put forward in this blog, thousands of biomarkers that are currently being reported may not be true biomarkers of the target disease, rather it may be a complex mixture of biomarkers, which may include target disease specific biomarker as well as biomarkers or biomolecules associated with other diseases, infections, gender, race/ethnic backgrounds, geographic-environmental factors, psychiatric condition/diseases and nutritional factors.  Based on our analysis, we believe that an ideal biomarker discovery platform, which can lead to the development of reliable and robust diagnostics assays, should be developed by integrating comprehensive understanding of patients’ phenotypic, genetic and socio-environmental characteristics along with biological and functional relevance of all biomolecules that may be potentially identified and called as biomarkers. Several innovative strategies for developing rational and personalized biomarker discovery platforms have been suggested in this blog. These strategies include 1) Comprehensive genome-scale analysis based rational genetic biomarker discovery 2) Cell or tissue or organ specific function based rational or targeted biomarker discovery 3) Use of validated tissue/organ specific biomarkers or therapeutic drug targets for identifying non-invasive biomarkers, 4) Epidemiology-driven biomarker discovery for developing personalized diagnostic tools and 5) Integrated bioinformatics approaches for rational biomarker discovery. The relevance of disease prevalence and predictive value in biomarker discovery for personalized medicine, utility of rational or personalized biomarkers in clinical trials and applications of rationally identified biomarkers for diagnostics imaging or theranostics have also been discussed. Link to the full blog: http://www.sciclips.com/sciclips/blogArticle.do?id=1021&blog=Strategies%20for%20Rational%20and%20Personalized%20Cancer%20Biomarker%20Discovery

Potential Use of Drug Response-Efficacy Biomarkers for Predicting Life-Threatening Disease Causing Side Effects of Therapeutic Drugs

This scientific blog analyzes potential applications of drug response-efficacy biomarkers for predicting future onset of drug therapy induced life-threatening diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, infectious diseases and cancer. Enabling applications of drug response-efficacy biomarkers for predicting drug-induced side effects may lead to the development of “smart biomarkers”, which can reduce morbidity and mortality in patients, and can revolutionize personalized medicine approaches. In order to achieve this goal, we proposed a model for the discovery of drug response-efficacy biomarkers and the translational utilization of these biomarkers for personalized therapies. In an exploratory analysis, anti-TNF therapy response markers of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) were analyzed, by intelligent data mining and data analysis, to demonstrate that these biomarkers may be potentially used for predicting the risk in developing cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), like atherosclerosis, in RA patients.  Please follow this link to read the blog:

http://www.sciclips.com/sciclips/blogArticle.do?id=Potential Use of Drug Response-Efficacy Biomarkers for Predicting Life-Threatening Disease Causing Side Effects of Therapeutic Drugs