title: Using molecular profiled human tissue to accelerate drug discovery.
abstract: The value of molecular profiled human tissue lies in its potential to improve the efficiency of drug discovery and development. The sequencing and profiling of human biospecimens across multiple omics dimensions provides layers of molecular information that can be used to enhance our knowledge of disease mechanisms to identify and prioritize novel drug targets and provide supportive biological evidence to support a therapeutic hypothesis. It is critical to control pre-analytical variables because the reproducibility and accuracy of molecular data generated by high-throughput technologies is dependent upon biospecimen quality. The scientific knowledge and technology developments gained in tissue banking research are transforming biospecimen collection and biostorage practices. These tissue banking advancements will improve specimen quality and utilization and, at the same time, reduce biobanking costs. Furthermore, well-annotated, high quality biospecimens will provide reliable, consistent gene expression data for target validation for drug discovery. Challenges in understanding the molecular signatures of biospecimens follow the challenges of human tissue acquisition. Sequencing and profiling high-throughput technologies generate heterogeneous, complex data sets that require sophisticated informatics tools for data storage and analysis. As tissue banking and informatics technologies improve and we gain deeper knowledge of the human genome and its functionality, we will see biomarker identification and target therapies brought about by the research performed on high quality biospecimens.
authors.affiliation: Analytical Biological Services, Inc. , 701 Cornell Drive, Wilmington, DE 19801 , USA.
authors.forename: Katherine A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Tarvin
authors.forename: George E
authors.initials: GE
authors.lastname: Sandusky
mesh_terms: D018070:Biological Specimen Banks; D055808:Drug Discovery; D023281:Genomics; D006801:Humans
keywords: biobanking; drug discovery; gene expression; high quality biospecimens; human tissues; molecular profiling; next generation technologies; omics research