Markers of Dispute

In 1987, Robert Getzenberg was beginning his doctorate at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine urology department, the oldest in the country. Founded in 1915, the James Buchanan Brady Urological Institute’s historical roots seep from its every corner. Its current location boasts a cozy library showcasing the original classroom chair and desk of the department’s founder. Exquisite medical illustrations—including the first to document prostate surgery—line the hallways. Here, under the eye of advisor Donald Coffey, a powerhouse in prostate cancer biology, the energetic young Getzenberg started hunting for distinctive molecular signatures of the disease in rat tumor tissue.Prostate cancer biomarkers had recently become an enticing line of research. In 1986, a San Diego biotech, Hybritech, Inc., unveiled the first US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved blood test for one such marker, called prostate specific antigen (PSA)—a protein that is leaked by damaged prostate cells, including cancer cells, into the blood.But PSA was far from perfect.Read more at...Nature Medicine, December 2009.Or, listen to the podcast.