BioWorld International Correspondent

LONDON - After the Human Genome Project comes the Human Proteome Project, to be fostered by HUPO, the Human Proteome Organization, launched earlier this month by 20 proteomics experts from industry and academia.

HUPO said that proteomics now warrants "a similar focus of investment and research effort" to that put behind the Human Genome Project, and it will "work hard to assist in creating a similar environment for proteomics."

An inaugural meeting of HUPO, which will model itself on the Human Genomics Organization (HUGO), will take place in the U.S. in April. At this meeting the detailed goals and objectives of HUPO will be considered.

One of the founding members of HUPO, Ian Tomlinson of the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, told BioWorld International, "A lot of people have been thinking about this for a long time. Now that we have the genome completed we need to move to the understanding of proteins as the products of genes."

While there are a range of academics and companies already working in proteomics, they are not coordinated. "That was one of the key achievements of HUGO, coordinating separate efforts. We want to prevent people from overlapping, and push it [proteomics] forward," said Tomlinson.

The initial membership of HUPO covers Europe, North America, the Far East and Japan, and number of companies are involved, including Celera Genomics, F. Hoffmann-La Roche, Oxford GlycoSciences plc and Proteome Sciences plc.

Christopher Pearce, CEO of Proteome Sciences, told BioWorld International, "Expertise in proteomics is very much vested in the academic world. We want to coordinate effort to avoid unnecessary duplications, and foster development by putting information in public databases."

Pearce said as a company funding academic groups, Proteome Sciences may, or may not, decide to patent proteins before making them public. He said that although there is great commercial value in the proteome it will be possible for companies to collaborate pre-competitively. "At the moment we are looking at an ocean in terms of what needs to be done. People will set off in their own directions, but down the road they will collaborate."

In addition to coordinating existing efforts, HUPO hopes to get access to funding and grants to push the project forwards. Ian Humphery-Smith of the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, who led the formation of HUPO, said, "Proteins are central to our understanding of cellular functions and disease processes and without a concerted effort in proteomics the fruits of genomics will go unrecognized." HUPO will "encourage cooperation between the scientific, governmental and financial communities in order to realize the full benefits that proteomics can deliver."

Tomlinson said proteomics should attract far more commercial money than the early stages of the Human Genome Project, which was publicly funded.

"A lot of work will be done by academics, but all the [biosciences] companies will need to be in it," he said. "The commercial side will be more important in the proteome than it was in the genome."

Tomlinson also noted that the two projects are different in kind. "With the genome, the code produced was not patentable, per se. Information from the proteome will be more immediately commercially relevant. For the science [of proteomics] to work there has to be availability of data. We want to make sure data is available, while commercial interests are protected."

HUPO also aims to increase public awareness of proteomics and the opportunities it offers in diagnosis, prognosis and therapy.