The use of transcriptional signatures for clinical population selection

The use of biomarkers for the stratification of populations for therapy is a concept that holds the potential to revolutionize clinical trial design, the economics of healthcare, and most importantly, the future treatment of cancer patients. While single-gene aberrations are currently being used as predictive biomarkers in oncology clinical trial design, the use of multi-gene biomarkers such as transcriptional signatures is not common, despite the fact that multi-gene signatures may be more likely to provide the high sensitivity and specificity required for biomarkers to be validated for clinical practice. The Compendia Bioscience Translational Bioinformatics Services team has expertise in generation and refinement of transcriptional biomarkers of response. These signatures of response and resistance can be utilized to support many aspects of drug development, including understanding mechanism of action, building a competitive differentiation plan, and identification of drug combination opportunities. In this session, Dr. Urick will discuss the potential utility of transcriptional signatures as predictive biomarkers as well as highlight the current techniques used by the Compendia Bioscience Translational Bioinformatics Services team to utilize transcriptional signatures for potential clinical trial population selection.