Antibody-based proteomics: fast-tracking molecular diagnostics in oncology

Personalization of cancer therapy requires the identification of unambiguous diagnostic, prognostic and predictive biomarkers to facilitate the accurate stratification of patients and the monitoring of responses to targeted therapies.The systematic generation and validation of specific antibodies offers a high-throughput mechanism for the functional exploration of the proteome and a logical approach for fast-tracking the translation of identified biomarkers.Multiple approaches exist, each with specific characteristics and advantages that are suitable for a wide range of applications, which capitalize on the inherent specificity and sensitivity of antibodies as affinity reagents.The integration of antibody-based approaches with existing genomic and transcriptomic methods offers huge potential, and the clinical implementation of new high-throughput antibody-based approaches will depend on the integration of data across various platforms.The clinical application of new antibody-based assays demonstrates their utility as accurate, sensitive and robust diagnostic and prognostic tests and has led to the development of a new approach, known as pathway diagnostics, which is likely to have a crucial role in the design of future molecular therapeutic trials.