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Question ID: WS-25
Submitted by: Olivera Finn
February 3, 2011

ProtectOME? We have paid a lot of attention to the importance of the cancer genOME, cancer proteOME, cancer metabolOME and will probably invent other cancer OMES without acknowledging the most important fact that cancer grows in the host and its chance to express all its various OMES is fully dependent on whether the host immune system will allow it or not. There is accumulating evidence that the immune system recognizes abnormal expression of various cellular proteins that occur during viral infections, bacterial infections, chronic inflammations and malignant transformation. By building immune memory for “abnormal self” through exposure to pathogens early in life the immune system is better prepared to eliminate abnormal cells before they become a threat. By gaining access to large well-annotated cohorts of individuals whose sera can be interrogated in a high throughput fashion for specific antibody signatures (many of which are expected to correspond to antibodies against well known tumor associated antigens), we will gain better insight into cancer risk, cancer prognosis and targets for cancer therapy. Specific molecules or their synthetic mimics recognized by antibodies and correlated with good health, low cancer risk, better cancer prognosis after diagnosis, longer survival, better response to immunotherapy, or any other outcome, would become the protectome to be interrogated for other diseases and used in designing therapies.

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