Biomarkers to detect past alcohol use and identify alcohol-related diseases have long been pursued as important tools for research into
alcohol use disorders as well as for clinical and treatment applications and other settings. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) sponsored a workshop titled "Workshop on
Biomarkers for
Alcohol-Induced Disorders" in June 2008. The intent of this workshop was to review and discuss recent progress in the development and implementation of
biomarkers for alcohol use and
alcohol-related disorders with a goal to formulate a set of recommendations to use to stimulate and advance research progress in this critical area of
alcoholism research. Presentations at this workshop reviewed the current status of alcohol
biomarkers, providing a summary of the history of
biomarkers and the major goals of alcohol
biomarker research. Moreover, presentations provided a comprehensive overview of the current status of several well-recognized
biomarkers of alcohol use, a summary of recent studies to characterize novel
biomarkers and their validation, along with perspectives and experiences from other NIH institutes and from other federal agencies and industry, related to regulatory issues. Following these presentations, a panel discussion focused on a set of issues presented by the organizers of this workshop. These discussion points addressed: (i) issues related to strategies to be adopted to stimulate
biomarker discovery and application, (ii) the relevance of animal studies in
biomarker development and the status of
biomarkers in basic science studies, and (iii) issues related to the opportunities for clinical and commercial applications. This article summarizes these perspectives and highlights topics that constituted the basis for recommendations to enhance alcohol
biomarker research.