Towards Useful Biomarkers for Cancer Care

Many healthcare decisions of today and in the future will be based on the results of tests that look at the presence, absence, or quantity of biomarkers. Hopes are high for their potential, especially in oncology. But biomarkers come with a number of issues that must be resolved.

Despite the large numbers of scientific publications reporting new cancer biomarkers, very few of them are of sufficient quality to be approved by a regulatory body such as the FDA. There are several known reasons for this failure, namely study design shortcomings in discovery and validation (low statistical strength, population based vs ad hoc, inappropriate statistical model, sample quality shortcomings, one tumor type at a time vs normal population).

In this workshop, the controversies, potentials biases, and considerations relative to the clinical application of blood biomarker assays for cancer screening and management will be discussed. What technical, epidemiological, legal and organizational requirements must be included in the analysis for it to be clinically relevant?

Inspirational Speakers: Dr. Cheng-Ho Jimmy Lin, Chief Scientific Officer, Natera, 

Dr. Chand Kanna, Chief Science Officer, Ethos Veterinary Health,

Mr. Didier Meulendiijks, Dutch Medicines Evaluation Board, Netherlands

Link to pre-conference report chapter

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Workshop Team: Tobias Sjöblom, Uppsala University & Henrik Rönnberg, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences