Tuesday, April 16, 2019

Proteomics, a new science to detect human disease

Biomarkers that can predict with greater accuracy who is susceptible to a particular disease, and help doctors diagnose and treat it earlier.  
Dr Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature School on Blog

Mapping the human genome helps scientists determine risk factors for disease.  Searching proteins tells us about the state of  a disease in patients now. Since the sequencing of the genome was completed in 2003 scientists have been able to figure out which mutations will make us vulnerable to certain diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, Alzheimer's disease, including autism and depression. Computing power has tremendously increased with almost 20,000 genes so far, have provided a DNA map that helps drug companies to target specific mutations. 

But it is not the genes themselves that make us, it is the proteins which they produce which they dispatch into our body to execute genetic will. If the genes are the blueprints, the proteins are the working parts controlling every cell in our body. And just as the genes collectively make up the genome and have given rise to the science of genomics, so too do all our body's proteins make up our proteome, which has its corresponding discipline: proteomics

The field of proteomics that is currently attracting a lot of investments is biomarkers, which can predict with greater accuracy who is susceptible to a particular disease, and help doctors diagnose and treat it earlier and treat it.  The market for biomarker technologies is expected to more than double by 2015 - from $13.5 billion in 2010 to $33 billion in 2015.  (Time, May 20, 2014).~

Acknowledgement: Wikipedia, Time 
* Lesson on defunct Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid 738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday


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