In an effort to develop a test able to accurately detect early stage ovarian cancer (OC), a collaborative biomarker discovery and evaluation program has been established by a number of research institutes in Canada and the US funded by the Canary Foundation.Candidate OC biomarkers were identified by cDNA expression analysis and proteomic approaches, as well as from the literature.They would be first evaluated using commercial ELISA kits, if available.A candidate biomarkers ability to detect early stage OC is assessed using a series of three progressively larger serum sets.If ELISA kits are unavailable for candidate biomarkers, ELISAs are developed.The candidate biomarker cDNA is cloned into a shuttle vector which is used to sublcone the cDNA into various expression hosts for protein production.This approach allows us to use protein from one expression host to immunize animals and protein from a different host to screen hybidomas for specific antibodies.