Translational Proteomics: Liquid Biopsies, Therapeutic Targets & Mechanistic Insights

The seminar will cover the two main areas of interest in the Kislinger lab: biomarker discovery and identification of novel cell-surface markers. Better biomarkers are desperately needed to guide clinical decision making at all levels of cancer care. Each successive wave of “omics” technologies has brought with it great promise of clinically significant biomarkers and with that the hope of a future for personalized management of individuals with cancer. Yet in spite of these tremendous technical advances the number of new clinical biomarkers seems unchanged. Focused discovery linked to rapid development of multiplexed quantitative assays will provide a platform for accelerating biomarker development. I will summarize our current biomarker discovery efforts using proximal tissue fluids, and how these data were used to systematically develop targeted proteomics assays for prostate and ovarian cancers. The second part of my talk will be focused on cell-surface membrane proteins. This class of proteins has traditionally been underrepresented in proteomics studies, but recent technological developments now enable a systematic phenotyping of cell-surface markers. These proteins are particularly interesting as novel drug targets in cancer. My lab has embarked on a number of discovery and validation studies to identify novel therapeutic targets for various cancers.