Jason S Lewis PhD, Presenter: Nothing to Disclose

1) The audience will learn that despite their considerable advantages, many circulating biomarkers have well documented limitations. 2) The audience will learn about imaging tool that can be used to deconvolute the meaning of inconclusive circulating biomarker levels.

For good reason, discovering biomarkers that can be assayed from biological fluids has long been regarded as a “holy grail” for medical diagnostics. Indeed, several decades of systematic research have identified many secreted molecules differentially regulated in the context of malignant cancers that are now routinely measured in man to screen for disease onset, develop prognoses, and monitor tumor response or recurrence. Their rapid commercialization, favorable economics, and simple experimental outputs (lending itself to standardization for multi-center trials) have engendered the widespread use of many analytical platforms to measure serum biomarker levels (e.g. ELISAs). The resulting vast body of epidemiological data has consistently reinforced the notion that, while exciting progress has been made, we have yet to find a single, “smoking-gun” serum biomarker that can be effectively applied to address all of the above-mentioned clinical issues for a given cancer. However, despite their considerable advantages, many circulating biomarkers have well documented limitations. One prominent shortcoming in oncology is a high frequency of false positive indications for malignant disease in upfront diagnosis. Because one common cause of false positivism is biomarker production from benign disorders in unrelated host tissues, we hypothesized that probing the site(s) of biomarker secretion with an imaging tool could be a broadly useful strategy to deconvolute the meaning of foreboding but inconclusive circulating biomarker levels. In preparation to address this hypothesis clinically, we have developed a series of imaging agents that specially target serum biomarkers, and as a result overcome the documented limitations of these tests.

Lewis, J, Imaging Serum Biomarkers.  Radiological Society of North America 2014 Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting, - ,Chicago IL. http://archive.rsna.org/2014/14004200.html