Life sciences: Biomarkers on the brain * Alla Katsnelson

Life sciences: Biomarkers on the brain
* Alla Katsnelson
Nature

http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/2011/111103/full/nj7371-139a.html?WT.ec_id=NATUREjobs-20111103

joint clinical and research residency in neurochemistry at Sahlgrenska University Hospital at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden

“Biomarkers are really in vivo measurements of the pathology of the disease, so it's an opportunity to investigate the disease mechanisms on a patient level,”

protein biomarkers in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)

In the past few years, interest in the discovery and validation of biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease has grown rapidly in both academia and industry. The surge is driven by a growing awareness that disease pathology takes root a decade or more before symptoms of cognitive decline become apparent. The most effective therapies will have to be administered early on, before symptoms are evident — and well validated biological measures will be needed for both diagnosis and prognosis.

Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), is a public–private partnership with researchers at almost 60 institutions in the United States and Canada.

Data-analysis skills are in high demand across biomarker research. Increasingly, researchers are investigating panels of biomarkers rather than single proteins, and studies can involve hundreds or thousands of subjects, each with samples taken at several points over many years.

“Bioinformatics, biostatistics, database handling — those are the most critical skills.”

From lab to therapy

One area of the industry that is hiring, notes Soares, is translational medicine, in which biomarkers are commonly used to help gauge the effectiveness and specificity of a drug candidate as it moves from bench to bedside. Vacancies exist at most pharmaceutical companies, and are generally open to people with MDs, PhDs and pharmacology doctorates, says Soares. Rather than generating biomarker data, these jobs are “more about strategy — how you use the biomarkers to make decisions”.