Biomarkers in human reproduction
Reproductive Biotechnologies - 1st year
Schema della sezione
-
-
Since the emergence of the so-called omics technology, thousands of putative biomarkers have been identified in order to develop more effective therapeutics. These opportunities can have profound benefits for patients and for the economics of healthcare. However, the transfer of biomarkers from discovery to clinical practice is still a process filled with lots of pitfalls and limitations, mostly limited by structural and scientific factors. To become a clinically approved test, a potential biomarker should be confirmed and validated using hundreds of specimens and should be reproducible, specific and sensitive. Besides the lack of quality in biomarker validation, a number of other key issues can be identified and should be addressed.
-
Despite the protective membrane that separates a cell from the environment, cells need the ability to detect and respond to environmental changes. as well as they need to communicate with one another. Unicellular and multicellular organisms use a variety of cell signaling mechanisms to communicate to respond to the environment.
-
Many different kinds of molecules transmit information between the cells of multicellular organisms. Although all these molecules act as ligands that bind to receptors expressed by their target cells, there is considerable variation in the structure and function of the different types of molecules that serve as signal transmitters. This section t discuss the major types of signaling molecules and the receptors with which they interact., and it focuses on the mechanisms by which cell receptors function to regulate cell behavior.
-