Abnormal stress and death responses are observed in the majority of diseases threatening human health, including cancer, neurodegenerative (e.g. Parkinson's disease) and inherited storage diseases (e.g. Gaucher's disease). In the case of cancer, stress responses prevent abnormal growth and spread of diseased cells, while in degenerative and storage diseases, excessive and inefficient stress responses aggravate disease pathology. Stressed cells that cannot recover suicide for the best interest of organisms. Abnormalities of stress and death responses that are observed during disease formation might be studied to better understand mechanisms controlling normal cell behaviour and they might be exploited for the discovery of novel disease markers.

Cells in culture as well as experimental animals (mice and rats) might be used to better understand normal cellular mechanisms and their perturbations leading to diseases. Validations of experimental findings require comparison of the quality and the quantity of bio molecules (proteins, RNAs, DNAs) in tissue samples (tumor, biopsy material, tissue fragments, blood etc) and body fluids (sputum, urine etc) with those obtained from normal individuals. Results of these efforts will provide tools to diagnose diseases, improve existing disease classification systems and predict disease outcomes in patient groups (prognosis). Resulting markers should be novel, innovative and patentable. An interdisciplinary approach will allow the integration of the disease markers into chip systems and devices that will be studied and developed in the center of excellence.