Biomarkers
Biomarkers are decision-making tools at the basis of clinical diagnostics and essential for guiding therapeutic treatments. A biomarker represents a feature which may be taken as an indicator of normal biological processes, pathogenic processes or pharmacological responses to a therapeutic intervention.
The growing interest in developing biomarkers, is boosted by the perspective of immediate biomedical applications. The discovery of clinical biomarkers, which may be exploited to monitor the efficacy of therapeutic interventions, represents the basis of evidence based medicine.
Autoimmune diseases are generally associated with humoral or cell-mediated immune reactions against one or more of the body’s own constituents. The immune system can attack self-antigens triggering an autoimmune response, which may cause tissue damage.
The immune response usually involves activation of both T and B cells, the latter producing antibodies that, if detectable in sera of patients, can be used to guide the clinical management of certain diseases.
