Correlative Science
The Promise of Personalized Medicine
Correlative science is a term used to show the relationship between molecular biology (i.e. biomarkers such as genes and proteins) and clinical outcomes (i.e. disease progression). This is the promise of personalized medicine.
Research is conducted using tissue from patients and comparing it to normal tissue. This tissue is more correctly referred to as a biospecimen. Many people use the term "tissue" to refer to any type of biospecimen sample used for studies, but we will use it only if it is actually tissue and not another substance as described below.
Biospecimens are any material taken from the human body, such as tissue, blood (both serum & plasma), cells (DNA), spinal fluid, bone marrow and urine that can be used for cancer diagnosis and analysis.
When patients have a biopsy, surgery, or other procedure, often a small amount of the specimen removed can be stored and used for later research. These biospecimens are analyzed for patterns that predict:
- Which people are most likely to get cancer
- Which patients are most likely to live longest, without treatment
- Which patients are most likely to benefit from specific treatments
- Better ways to deliver drugs or agents to specific cells
- Methods used to identify how diseases progress and vary
Biorepositories (or biobanks) are "tissue libraries" where biospecimens are stored and made available for scientists to study for research purposes.
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Image courtesy of the National Cancer Institute
