CRG PRESS RELEASE

THE CENTRE FOR GENOMIC REGULATION PARTICIPATES IN THE EUROPEAN PROJECT “PROSPECTS”
Novel EU-funded collaborative proteomics project will focus on technology development to tackle human disease

Systems Biology Group, from the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) leadered by  Luis Serrano is the only Spanish group in this project.

Unique insights into the molecular basis of multiple forms of human disease, specifically neurodegeneration and others related to folding stress, can be expected as results of the recently started research consortium PROSPECTS (PROteomics SPECification in Time and Space).

The European Commission is co-funding the project with 12 Million Euros for five years (2008 – 2013) within the Research Framework Programme 7. PROSPECTS will develop novel technologies for proteomics research in the health field pioneering the development of new applications and approaches in functional proteomics and mass spectrometry.

All data produced by PROSPECTS will be available to the scientific community via annotated online public databases, and used as a basis for a systems biological modelling of the human proteome with spatial and temporal resolution within the cell.

Proteomics, what is it and what is it for...
Proteins are the major functional actors within cells and exert most of their functions in larger assemblies, or “molecular machines”. Thus the determination of interactions between various proteins and their location within a cell is a crucial prerequisite to better understand how cells work.

Proteomics is a major new field in biomedical research, which deals with the large-scale identification and characterization of a large number of proteins, or “proteomes”. Current ‘first generation’ proteomics approaches aimed to establish the full inventory of proteins present in a tissue or cell at a given moment in time, thus creating a “snapshot” of the protein repertoire. Despite tremendous improvements over the past few years, proteomics technology still represents the major limiting factor for the functional analysis of proteomes, creating a time-lapse movie of the players involved in cell functions at the molecular scale.

The PROSPECTS project was initiated by world leaders in this young discipline to make a major advance in the field both by developing much more powerful instrumentation and by applying novel proteomics methods.

The team comprises leading laboratories and companies in the complementary fields of proteomics, structural and cell biology, cell imaging, bioinformatics and data-mining, and computational modelling of proteomic data. The goal is to annotate quantitatively the human proteome with respect to protein localization and dynamics.

The PROSPECTS consortium is built around teams with a variety of pre-established and longstanding collaborations, which will ensure a close and successful interaction. In many ways, PROSPECTS builds on an earlier joint effort of all three groups at the German Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry (MPIB), Spanish Centre de Regulacio Genomica (CRG) and German company THERMO Fisher.

The role of Luis Serrano and CRG in PROSPECTS
The Serrano group (CRG, Barcelona) provides their know-how on systems modelling and will integrate the experimental data in their modelling platform.

Together the experts in this truly multidisciplinary consortium are an excellent team to develop the next generation proteomics, a generic, quantitative approach for identification and functional characterisation of the human proteome and its dynamics.

Participant organisations
Max Planck Gesellschaft (Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry), D
Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, Zürich, CH
University of Cambridge, UK
Syddansk Universitet, Odense, DK
Thermo Fisher, Bremen D
Proxeon Biosystems, Odense, DK
Centre de Regulacio Genomica, Barcelona, ES
University of Dundee, Dundee, UK
Kungliga Tekniska Høgskolan, Stockholm, SE
Hebrew University, Jerusalem, IS

Further information: Laia Cendrós, Communication & PPRR Dept., Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), Dr. Aiguader, 88 – PRBB Building, 08003 Barcelona, Tel.+34 93 316 01 53, comunicacio@crg.es

PROSPECTS website: www.prospects-fp7.eu