Currently, there is a considerable shift in expectations and demands on the future healthcare systems worldwide as treatment advances fast differentiating between chronic and acute illness. However, clinicians rely on standardized laboratory reference values to diagnose and differentiate states of health and diseases. The proteomics community has much to offer to the future clinical programs and is expected not only to identify protein biomarkers for monitoring disease progression and treatment efficacy but also to provide novel drug targets for directed therapy.

We invite researchers to contribute to this special issue original research articles as well as reviews that will highlight progress in the field of clinical proteomics. We are particularly interested in articles that can provide insight into understanding disease mechanisms, bring novel biomarkers to the clinical diagnostic field, and pave new paths in clinical applications of proteomics. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Biomarker discovery and validation
• Biomarker diagnostics
• Diagnosis of cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases
• Disease mechanisms
• Cell signaling
• Novel technological platforms, including protein microarrays
• Protein quantification