Biomarkers

Using Biomarkers to Work to Decode PF

Biomarkers—molecules that reveal whether a biologic process is happening inside a cell—can be useful tools in understanding, treating, or even preventing disease. Biomarkers can potentially identify people who:

• Have a specific disease.
• Are at risk of developing a disease.
• Might have better or worse disease outcomes.
• Can receive a treatment safely.
• Might respond better to one treatment than another.

In order to harness the power of biomarkers for the chronic, fatal lung disease pulmonary fibrosis, scientists must first:

• Identify the biomarker.
• Develop a test, or assay, that reliably indicates the presence, absence or change in amount of a biomarker.
  
• Correlate the biomarker with a consistent outcome in the cell.
• Validate that assay by testing it in large, multicenter studies including diverse groups of patient groups.