The interest and research into disease-related
biomarkers has greatly accelerated over the last 10 years. The potential clinical benefits for disease-specific
biomarkers include a more rapid and accurate disease diagnosis, and potential reduction in size and duration of clinical
drug trials, which would speed up
drug development. The application of
biomarkers into the clinical arena of
motor neuron disease should both determine if a
drug hits its proposed target and whether the
drug alters the course of disease. This article will highlight the progress made in discovering suitable
biomarker candidates from a variety of sources, including imaging, neurophysiology and proteomics. For
biomarkers to have clinical utility, specific criteria must be satisfied. While there has been tremendous effort to discover
biomarkers, very few have been translated to the clinic. The bottlenecks in the
biomarker pipeline will be highlighted as well as lessons that can be learned from other disciplines, such as oncology.