Chronic urologic disorders, in particular prostate / bladder carcinoma and diabetic nephropathies, have a major impact on today’s society. Their rapid increase is certainly in part owed to the high life expectancy. These diseases greatly reduce the quality of life of the affected population, and have an enormous impact on health care costs. It is expected that in the very near future costs of adequate therapy of these diseases will by far outrun the healthcare budgets, hence if the situation will not undergo any dramatic changes, then adequate treatment will not be available for all patients.

An array of studies indicate that these diseases could be at least delayed, if not entirely prevented, if first symptoms were detected early, preferably even before any irreparable damage occurs. In addition, early and sensitive diagnosis will as a consequence result in improved therapy and therapeutics in a next step, since such measures would allow a more thorough investigation of therapeutic success. With the development of technologies that are able to assess multiple molecular parameters like genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, etc., tools became available that would in theory allow to pinpoint patients at risk as well as identify first signs of diabetic nephropathies respectively prostate /  bladder carcinoma with high probability. Accomplishments in these areas unfortunately have not yet resulted in the widespread use in the early detection / differential diagnosis of diseases yet.
The strategic objective of the UroSysteomics project (www.ureosysteomics.com / www.urosysteomics.org) is to discover novel biomarkers that can be used for early detection, differential diagnosis and risk assessment of prostate / bladder carcinoma and diabetic nephropathies. Within the scope of UroSysteomics the consortium is going to pursue a comprehensive approach employing a set of new applied multiparametric technologies (proteomics, metabolomics, transcriptomics, genomics, microarrays etc.), together with clinical experts in a systems biology approach, to decipher the extraordinarily complex processes underlying these chronic urologic disorders on all levels (gene ó transcript ó protein ó metabolite). To reach this aim, the following specific scientific and technological objectives are targeted:

• Design a clinical protocol for clinical sample collection that fits the needs of the high-throughput screening technologies (transcriptomics, proteomics, genomics and metabolomics).
• Discover biomarker candidates (metabolites, polypeptides, genes, mRNAs) capable to detect and assess the status of prostate / bladder carcinoma.
• Develop a centralized database to integrate the data generated by the technology platforms with the anatomoclinical information of the clinical collection.
• Identify among candidates, biomarkers with better diagnostic / prognostic value by using across-platform advanced datamining techniques on the combined data from the different technology platforms and the clinical information.
• Validate the biological relevance and diagnostic / therapeutical potential of the identified biomarkers by testing the biomarkers specificity on tissue arrays and in relevant preclinical models.
• Develop diagnostic and prognostic tools that can be used in clinical practice for individualized patient treatment.