A biomarker is a parameter that can be used to measure the progress of disease or the effects of treatment. The parameter can be chemical, physical or biological. In molecular terms biomarker is "the subset of markers that might be discovered using genomics, proteomics technologies or imaging technologies. Biomarkers play major roles in medicinal biology. In medicine, a biomarker is a term often used to refer to a protein measured in blood whose concentration reflects the severity or presence of some disease state. Biomarkers help in early diagnosis, disease prevention, drug target identification, drug response etc.
More generally a biomarker is anything that can be used as an indicator of a particular disease state or some other physiological state of an organism. Biomarkers are key molecular or cellular events that link a specific environmental exposure to a health outcome. They  play an important role in understanding the relationships between exposure to environmental chemicals, the development of chronic human diseases, and the identification of subgroups that are at increased risk for disease. 
Complex organ functions or general characteristic changes in biological structures can also serve as biomarkers. Although the term biomarker is relatively new, biomarkers have been used in pre-clinical research and clinical diagnosis for a considerable time.
 
Much progress has been made in identifying and validating new biomarkers that can be used in population-based studies of environmental disease.
 
Group Leader
S. Abolhassan Shahzadehfazeli, PhD

Research Assistants
Anahita Mohseni Meybodi, PhD
Sh Zarei Moradi, MSc
O Asadpour, MSc