Patent ID: 7888051

Claim:
A method of identifying altered biomarker expression levels in a human serum specimen to diagnose pathologies of human lung tissues comprising: obtaining said human serum specimen to be tested for said altered biomarker expression levels; selecting biomarkers for measuring said biomarker expression levels in said human serum specimen; measuring said biomarker expression levels in said human serum specimen, said measuring step comprising dividing said human serum specimen into aliquots, placing said aliquots of said human serum specimen into a plurality of wells on a microplate, said plurality of wells having antibody derivitized dye coded beads therein to detect the presence of a particular biomarker selected during said selecting step, subjecting said microplate with said aliquots of said human serum specimens to a bead-based multiplexing assay, observing and measuring the resulting said biomarker expression levels from said bead-based multiplexing assay; determining substantially unaltered biomarker expression levels for the same biomarkers selected in said selecting step, said unaltered biomarker expression levels being determined from a population of human serum specimens not having said pathologies of human lung tissues; comparing said biomarker expression levels of said human serum specimen obtained in said obtaining step to said unaltered biomarker expression levels from said population of human serum specimens; determining whether said biomarker expression levels of said human serum specimen are altered; wherein said altered biomarker expression levels are indicative of said pathologies of said human lung tissues; and wherein said pathologies of said human lung tissues comprise non-small cell lung cancers and asthma.