Epitomics: global profiling of immune response to disease using protein microarrays

The immune system retains memory of current and past infections and can sense the presence of cancer by elaborating autoantibodies to tumor proteins. In the presence of an autoimmune disease, the immune system is an efficient, natural biosensor. Therefore we exploit the immune system through a high-throughput process to isolate disease-specific epitopes for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. These cloned disease-specific antigens are robotically spotted onto protein microarrays and interrogated with serum from the subjects under analyses. These arrays deliver personalized profiles of antigenic exposures and therapeutic targets for personalized immunotherapy. The immune system is the ultimate biosensor, superior to anything a human could create and ready to be exploited for biotechnology and biomedicine.