Metrological Aspects to Identify and Quantify Cancer Malignancies |Biomedgrid

Cancer research is currently one of the most challenging topics in the health area, notwithstanding the implementation of Network research groups, like PAN-Cancer and Cancer Core Europe, that provide a powerful knowledge base. Cancer marker information made available by these networks is making it possible to develop “macro visions” that will enable the achievement of better prognoses. The availability of big data produced by sequencing techniques requires new kinds of infrastructures in the field of bioinformatics, which are being used by these networks to manage information produced around the World. Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML), affects children and adult individuals, with a higher mortality rate among members of the adult group. Several research teams are working on AML and, according to some researchers, the effectiveness of medical treatments is still poor. Some National Metrology Institutes (NMI) are working on the development and certification of Reference Materials in order to provide a practical quality assurance tool for diagnostic analysis, specifically for laboratories that use PCR and sequencing techniques. Metrology is the science of measurements in all fields of physics, chemistry and biology. The combination of interdisciplinary efforts from oncologists, geneticists, biomedical researchers and metrologists, among others, is necessary to solve a problem as complex as cancer. Metrology can provide an alternative point of view, considering the problem as a measurement task that needs to be improved.