Measuring What Matters: Proliferation and Cell Death Biomarkers for Oncology Research

Biomarkers are critical tools for all stages of cancer research, from drug development through clinical applications.  Cancer is fundamentally a disease of unregulated cell growth and circumvented cell death; therefore biomarkers focused on these two cellular processes are valuable in the various stages of drug development for many cancer types.  Few commonly used biomarkers offer the sensitivity and specificity needed to efficiently take drugs through all stages of development and clinical uses.  Thymidine Kinase 1 (TK1) is an old biomarker with a new use in solid tumor studies, while Keratin 18 is a useful biomarker for assessing and distinguishing between necrotic vs apoptotic cell death.  

This talk aims to introduce these two biomarkers as superior options to use over other biomarkers and present data to support their value in developing drugs to target solid tumors.