Proteomic and genomic discoveries have identified vast numbers of new drug targets for investigation. In the quest to discover drugs that modulate the function of these targets, identification of small-molecule drug leads is one of the earliest steps. Structure-based drug design has em ...
The quantity and complexity of the molecular-level data generated in both research and clinical settings require the use of sophisticated, powerful computational interpretation techniques. It is for this reason that bioinformatic analysis of complex molecular profiling data ...
Scientists employing microarray profiling technology to compare sample sets generate data for a large number of endpoints. Assuming the experimental design minimized sources of bias, and the analytical technology was reliable, precise, and accurate, how does the experimentali ...
The emerging field of proteomic molecular profiling will be driven by new technologies that can measure dozens to hundreds of proteins from a small sample input from a patient’s biopsy. Lysate arrays, or reverse-phase protein microarrays, provide a platform for complex mixtures of protei ...
Cancer staging and grading are used to predict the clinical behavior of malignancies, establish appropriate therapies, and facilitate exchange of precise information between clinicians. The internationally accepted criteria for cancer staging, the tumor-node-metastas ...
Advancements in technology and computational power in recent years have directly impacted modern microscopy through improvements in light detection, imaging software platforms, as well as integration of complex hardware systems. These successes have allowed for mainstream ...
Individualized therapy using adult stem cells constitutes a revolutionary vision for molecular medicine of the future. The field of stem cell biology has accelerated dramatically such that it now appears feasible to treat an individual patient’s disease with native or modified stem ce ...
Existing at the heart of cellular energy metabolism, the mitochondrion is uniquely positioned to have a major impact on human disease processes. Examples of mitochondrial impact on human pathology abound and include etiologies ranging from inborn errors of metabolism to the site of acti ...
Discovery of candidate biomarkers within the entire proteome is one of the most important and challenging goals in proteomic research. Mass spectrometry-based proteomic is a modern and promising technology for semiquantitative and qualitative assessment of proteins, enabli ...
Protein biomarkers provide the key diagnostic information for the detection of disease, risk of disease progression, and a patient’s likely response to drug therapy. Potential biomarkers exist in biofluids, such as serum, urine, and cerebrospinal fluid. Unfortunately, discoveri ...
Cancer is the consequence of intra- and extracellular signaling network deregulation that derives from alteration of genetic and proteomic cellular homeostasis. Mapping the individual molecular circuitry of a patient’s tumor cells is the starting point for rational personali ...
The tissue microarray (TMA) is the embodiment of high-throughput pathology. The platform combines tens to hundreds of tissue samples on a single microscope slide for interrogation with routine molecular pathology tools. TMAs have enabled the rapid and cost-effective screening of bi ...
Cystic fibrosis (CF) is the most common autosomal recessive disease in the USA and Europe, whose life-limiting phenotype is manifest on epithelial cells throughout the body. The principal cause of morbidity and mortality is a massively proinflammatory condition in the lung. The mutation ...
Laser capture microdissection (LCM) is a technique that allows the precise procurement of enriched cell populations from a heterogeneous tissue under direct microscopic visualization. LCM can be used to harvest the cells of interest directly or can be used to isolate specific cells by abl ...
Validation of antibodies is an integral part of translational research, particularly for biomarker discovery. Validation is essential to show the specificity of the reagent (antibody) and to confirm the identity of the protein biomarker, prior to implementing the biomarker in clini ...
The importance of cytosolic calcium (Ca2+) elevation in the regulation of platelet functions (shape change, aggregation, and secretion) has been widely acknowledged. Therefore its concentration must be tightly regulated, with most of it being sequestrated in intracellular orga ...
The cell membrane can no longer be viewed as a homogenous fluid bilayer; instead, it is now known to contain discrete lateral microdomains with characteristic subsets of lipids and proteins. One such microdomain, termed the “lipid raft,” has received much attention over the past few years. Seve ...
Phosphoinositides (PIs) are a family of eight quantitatively minor membrane lipids playing important roles in the control of a variety of intracellular signaling mechanisms in eukaryotic cells (1–4). The metabolism of these peculiar lipids is highly controlled by a set of enzymes such as k ...
Serine-threonine kinases play crucial roles in activating and inhibitory signaling pathways that control platelet activation. Diversity in isozyme composition, catalytic and regulatory subunits, and subcellular localization provide a multitude of signaling propert ...
The reversible covalent modification of proteins by the addition and removal of a phosphate group is an important theme in signal transduction in mammalian cells. There is a large superfamily of protein kinases that catalyse the addition of a phosphate group to hydroxyl residues on the side ch ...

