Platelets may serve up biomarkers

Abstract

Biomarkers, biological measurements that identify or "mark" the presence of disease, are nothing new to medicine, as exemplified by the routine use of CK-MB and troponin measurements to identify patients who have suffered a heart attack. However, the current "omics" revolution, which allows the simultaneous measurement of hundreds or thousands of molecules from a single sample, has reinvigorated the search for novel biomarkers for a variety of diseases.