Conference scene: ISOBM 2013 in Israel: part 1: biomarkers - where we are now?

The 40th annual Congress of the International Society of Oncology and Biomarkers took place in Jerusalem, Israel. The subtitle of this year's conference was: 'Innovations in oncological treatments and tumor markers'. Many issues on the potential use of markers were discussed, such as the potential use of markers for therapy response prediction in personalized medicine and for the proposal of algorithms for clinical practice use. A series of lectures was presented related to the discovery and preclinical and clinical validation of new biomarkers. The presentations were also split into keynote lectures, oral presentation in sessions and poster presentations. The conference was attended by approximately 186 participants and was attended by some of today's leading laboratory researchers in the field of oncology research. When comparing this conference with other meetings from previous years, it was evident that the biomarkers that are gaining in significance are DNA changes in association with the cancer process and epigenetic changes, which is seen to be methodically moving the field of immunoassays into molecular biology methods.