The development of omics technologies in recent years has made it possible to achieve an ever greater understanding of the pathophysiology of diseases and to discover potential biomarkers that can improve the diagnosis, prognosis and monitoring of how the disease responds to different treatments. This increase in the number of possible variables involved in the appearance of a disease is changing the way in which many of them are approached, going from a diagnosis based on the identification of previously annotated variants in a specific gene, in the case of genetically based diseases, or the quantitative alteration of a very small number of hormones, proteins or metabolites, to the need to study panels formed by dozens of genes or proteins that provide a more complete view of the disease.
In addition, the study of large sets of genes and/or proteins not only provides much more complete information, but also allows us to know in a particular way the individual characteristics that the disease presents in each patient. Being able to identify unequivocally which are the specific alterations that occur in different patients opens up the possibility of describing the specific "molecular signature" that the disease has in each of them. Knowing this molecular signature is of vital importance since it provides the opportunity to prescribe treatment on an individualized basis using drugs that act on the altered genes or proteins whenever possible.
This ability to carry out different therapeutic approaches depending on the molecular signature of a given disease in each patient is the basis on which Precision Medicine is based.
Dreamgenics' contribution to the development of personalised medicine
There is no doubt that the ultimate goal pursued by clinicians and researchers is to achieve the greatest possible knowledge of the pathophysiology of diseases and, to achieve this, it is clear that it is necessary to be able to study them as completely as possible. Thanks to the development of omics techniques, and taking into account the interrelationship between DNA, RNA and proteins, the simultaneous study of the genome, transcriptome and proteome currently provides unprecedented information, as never before obtained, for the knowledge and understanding of the molecular bases of diseases, making it possible to identify the specific genes and proteins that make up these molecular signatures in each case.
At Dreamgenics we perform differential gene expression studies through the quantification of messenger RNA molecules using branched DNA technology (Luminex, Inc.). These gene panels can be configured by our customers according to the needs of their line of research or opt for preconfigured panels covering more than 17,000 genes.
Likewise, using xMAP® technology, we quantify panels formed by dozens of proteins related to multiple diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, immunology, etc. Therefore, we have the capacity to jointly study differential expression at gene and protein level from different biological samples such as serum, plasma, urine, extravascular fluids, biopsies, cell cultures, etc.
In addition, thanks to our extensive experience in bioinformatics analysis of data from Next-generation Sequencing (NGS) technologies, these studies can be combined with different NGS analyses (whole genomes, exomes, RNA-Seq, etc.) to obtain as much information as possible from the same sample and advance in the understanding of the molecular basis of diseases.