{
  "id": 19361629,
  "title": "What are biomarkers? How doctors assess health and pooling people's cells reveals new markers—a biologist explains",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/10/what-are-biomarkers-how-doctors-assess-health-and-pooling-peoples",
  "topic": "science",
  "section": "Science",
  "published": "2026-11-10T16:40:23.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Medical Xpress",
    "slug": "medical-xpress",
    "url": "https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-11-biomarkers-doctors-health-pooling-people.html"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Biomarkers are measurable indicators in the body that provide insight into a person's health status or susceptibility to certain diseases. They can be found in various forms, such as blood tests, vital signs, cellular measurements, and genetic analyses. Biomarkers play a crucial role in modern medicine by helping doctors assess the impact of treatments and identify individuals at risk for specific conditions.\n\nDuring routine medical procedures, doctors measure physiological biomarkers like heart rate and blood oxygen levels, which indicate how well the body functions. Cellular biomarkers, such as white blood cell count, offer information about the activity of the immune system. Genetic biomarkers are specific DNA segments that provide clues about an individual's inherent risk of developing a particular disease or their likelihood of responding to a treatment.\n\nResearchers discover biomarkers by comparing biological features between different groups of people, such as those with a specific disease and healthy individuals or people who respond versus don't respond to a drug. Some biomarkers were initially identified through observations made in laboratory settings. For example, the A1c test for diabetes was discovered in the 1960s when scientists noticed abnormally high levels of a protein in the blood of people with diabetes. This test has since become a standard diagnostic tool.\n\nGenomewide association studies (GWAS) are another method for identifying genetic biomarkers. This approach involves scanning the genomes of thousands or even millions of people for genetic variants associated with a trait or disease. GWAS has led to the discovery of numerous biomarkers that guide the management of risks related to heart disease, age-related vision loss, and liver disease.\n\nHowever, GWAS has limitations as it may not always provide information on which tissue or cell types are relevant to a specific genetic variant. To address this issue, researchers are now using stem cell technologies to create cultured human brain cells in a lab setting. By converting stem cells derived from blood or skin samples into brain cells, scientists can study how these cells respond to harmful environmental factors without causing damage to living individuals.\n\nOne innovative approach to studying biomarkers is the \"cell village\" technique. In this method, researchers pool stem cell-derived brain cells from multiple people into a single culture dish, creating a diverse \"village\" of cells. Each cell in the village carries a unique genetic barcode that identifies its donor. By exposing this cell village to various environmental perturbations such as pathogens, chemical pollutants, and radiation, researchers can observe how individual cells react differently to these stressors. Identifying genetic markers linked to these specific cell responses can help explain why some people may be more vulnerable to certain exposures than others. This innovative technique has already yielded insights into understanding factors that contribute to individual differences in susceptibility to diseases like Zika virus infection.",
  "summary": "A family of five is exposed to the flu virus, but only two of them get sick. A lifelong chain-smoker lives 100 years, while a professional athlete in their prime dies of an unexpected heart attack. A drug fails a clinical trial due to harmful side effects in a subset of patients despite showing good results in others.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 2,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "The Conversation",
        "title": "What are biomarkers? A biologist explains how doctors measure your health – and how combining cells from different people can find new markers",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/10/what-are-biomarkers-a-biologist-explains-how-doctors-measure-your",
        "published": "2026-11-10T13:36:11.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}