ABSTRACT
Proteins/proteomics are important to personalized medicine since sick cells, cancer cells, and normal cells will express specic proteins on their surfaces and inside the cell that reect a cell’s activities and health. If a protein is specic for a cancer cell, then we can perhaps target that cell for destruction using a drug that is specic to that protein. However, if that protein produced by the cancer cell is also produced by another type of healthy cell in the body, then we may have di- culty targeting the cancer cell without hurting the healthy cell. Most chemotherapies target fast-growing cells for destruction, meaning that other healthy cells that proliferate rapidly, such as the epithelium that lines our mouth and digestive tract, our hair, and other cells in tissues, are killed. Chemotherapy has numerous side eects such as hair loss, nausea, vomiting, and neurological decits. If we can nd therapies using proteomics that target a more select group of abnormal cells, then we can more successfully rid our bodies of the disease with fewer side eects. To bring proteomic results to the clinic, we must also verify these ndings discovered in the laboratory with multiple dierent and independent quantitative investigative procedures (assays) that support targeting of that one protein or a few proteins. Proteomic results must also be veried with an analysis of a large number of patients with that disease, and they must determine what percentage of the patients are cured aer 5-10 years and what, if any, the short-and longterm side eects are of that therapy.
