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FAQ's

Frequently Asked Questions

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What is a biomarker?

A biomarker is a characteristic that can be measured to reflect physiological, pharmacological or disease processes in animals or humans (Genome Technology (May 2006); Yun-Fu He et al., Current Molecular Medicine (2005) 5:29-38). Biomarkers have been generally classified into 3 general categories:

  • clinical markers ( e.g. cholesterol levels as measure of cardiovascular disease, body mass index as measure of obesity);
  • imaging markers (e.g. labeled antibodies, radio nucleotides used in PET imaging); and
  • Molecular markers (DNA, RNA, protein metabolite).

The trend has been on the discovery of molecular biomarkers that can be detected in plasma and serum because of its ease of detection using standard diagnostic tools. The table below summarizes the different applications of biomarkers as adapted from Yun-Fu He et al., Current Molecular Medicine (2005) 5:29-38 and Genome Technology, May 2006, p.28-34.


What is a diagnostic?

A diagnostic is a means for differentiating the diseased from the healthy state or detecting the disease agent. Most diagnostics are based on antibodies for detecting proteins associated with a pathogen (e.g. HIV) or over expression of a disease (e.g. HER 2 for breast cancer patients). Newer methods such as PCR and micro-arrays are gaining ground for detecting the presence of nucleic acid based biomarkers (e.g. pathogenic micro-organisms’ genomes). Other molecular biomarkers such as metabolites can be detected using chromatographic or spectroscopic methods.

 

What are the Benefits of OvPlex™?

OvPlex™ will help by:

    • if it has better disease specificity than CA125 then it can be used to rule out - for example patients who have endometriosis (who while not having OC do have elevated CA125);
    • to detect the recurrence of the caner earlier - thus allowing early treatment and hopefully better patient outcomes; and
    • if it does have better sensitivity and specificity - OvPlex™ would be able to detect a greater proportion of earlier stage cancers and thus reduced the mortality rate.