1. Juan Carlos Torres Sánchez #804-11-9230 BIOL 3095
Seminar 2 on Proteomic Biomarkers
On September 16 and 17, we had a seminar with Ms. Lisandra Santiago. The
conference exposed me tonew concepts that I didn’t have knowledge on, such as mass
spectrometry, proteomics, and biomarkers. Her approach on the topic was very good,
because it intrigued me to find more information about proteomic biomarkers.,
Biomarkers help usfind sets of proteins encoded by a genome that will help trace
cancers.In this paper, we can see how biomarkers are so important in our life, andalso
the importance ofusingmass spectrometry for the discovery of protein biomarkers. To
find potential biomarkers they used a combination of serum and tissue samples.
Thecombined results led to the discovery of potential protein biomarkers. “Proteomics
has relied almost exclusively on evaluating protein as the criteria for finding
biomarkers” (Blonder Josip, Issaq ,Haleem J, Veenstra Timothy D. 2011)
Proteomics presentsseveral problems, as Lisandraindicated.By using two different
methods (isotope labeling and spectral counting) a large number of differences were
observed, but, it is unknown which one has the greater probability to be a biomarker.
This is the hard part about proteomics because right now you may have a lot of
possible biomarkers but which ones are the ones that will work? That is the big
question that scientist have to answer. Another problem with proteomic biomarkers is
that it has to go through certain stages for validation. The stages are discovery,
qualification, verification, and finallyvalidation. It is very difficult to get to the
validation stage, and that is why many scientist stop before validation. This shows us
how investigators needa lot of perseverance to complete the objectives at hand. We
should also be openedto changes in my objective, I could start with one and finish
with another one, and the important thing is to keep on going.

2. Reference:
Blonder Josip, Issaq ,Haleem J, Veenstra Timothy D. 2011. Proteomic biomarker
discovery: It’s more than just mass spectrometry. Electrophoresis. 32:1541–1548