Petricoin and Liotta have found biochemical signatures for cancers of the bladder, breast, ovaries, lung and colon. They're already testing their findings in clinical trials with patients, Petricoin said. They are even using their knowledge about proteins to alter their patients' medications. In the future, doctors hope to fight cancer with more drugs that target specific proteins. While other doctors have isolated the kinds of protein patterns associated with cancer, Wright is also trying to measure the exact amount of proteins, Srivastava said.
Proteomics has applications beyond cancer.
Researchers in London have found biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease, for example. Scientists also are studying protein markers involved in schizophrenia and a number of drug-resistant microorganisms, according to Enrique A. Dalmasso, a researcher at Ciphergen. Researchers are likely to have more success in creating screening tests or even new disease treatments with proteomics than with genomics, Dalmasso said. Doctors have developed very few successful treatments based on genes alone. Scientists found the gene responsible for a fatal disease called cystic fibrosis 10 years ago.