Emerging biomarker technologies

New technology offers great potential for advances in cancer biomarker research. Here, we describe a number of new technologies and discuss their potential for use in molecular cancer epidemiology. The successful sequencing of the human genome has revealed several new insights, including the fact that the human genome consists of only 40,000 genes and is highly variable, with approximately 60,000 functional polymorphisms. High-throughput genomic technologies continue to facilitate the identification and analysis of mutations and polymorphisms in key genes and expand the spectrum of available genomic biomarkers. The next major challenge is the identification of novel proteins and understanding the structure, function and interaction of proteins and other molecules--information that cannot be obtained from genomics alone. Emerging technologies including arrays, proteomics and nanotechnology provide new platforms for high-throughput, highly sensitive, functional assays. These technologies will complement existing and emerging genomic technologies and result in the identification of new biomarkers of cancer risk. They will, however, require extensive validation in epidemiological studies.