Proteomics Center Adds to MCW Biotech Initiative

The Biotechnology and Bioengineering Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin was formed in 2002 to bring together and enhance research and development in genetics, biophysics, molecular imaging, bioinformatics and proteins.

A new on-campus building for this "umbrella" group is in planning and additional faculty members are being recruited, all part of a major initiative to advance the science and technology necessary to, ultimately, advance the practice of medicine. A big boost was given to the overall effort, and to the study of proteins in particular, when the Medical College was designated a National Center for Proteomics Research and Development.

"The major thing that makes it an umbrella is bringing faculty together," said Andrew S. Greene, PhD, Medical College of Wisconsin Professor of Physiology and Director of the Biotechnology and Bioengineering Center. "We have recruited a number of faculty within our center and worked with many departments within the institution to co-recruit faculty. We're bringing people onto campus - into the state of Wisconsin, which is really an important point - who are interested in technology development areas and use of technology for medical research.

"Our major goal in this year is to begin to assemble a team of players, and we've had some pretty good luck with that. One major development came around the time of the formation of the Biotechnology and Bioengineering Center, when we were awarded as one of ten national centers of proteomics research. This is the study of the proteins in given systems. Proteomics is the next step after genetics. Genes are the assembly code for how you build proteins, and proteins are the part of the machines that actually do all the work in the body."

Resources Support Fundamental Research
In very general terms, proteins control basic cellular activity in areas such as digestion, growth, nerve impulse generation and coordination of movement. Genes instruct cells which specific proteins to produce.

Dr. Greene, who also serves as Principal Investigator for the Proteomics Center, is enthused by the prospect of having sufficient space to house protein researchers and genetic researchers under one roof to facilitate close-knit "meetings of minds" that can produce results from a big-picture perspective.

"Being one of the ten centers has provided a lot of resources that have allowed us to focus our energies on technology development in this area of proteomics," said Dr. Greene. "This contract is the largest award ever given to this institution by the NIH ($15.6 million) and is a collaborative effort with the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Oak Ridge National Laboratories in Tennessee, and a couple of local industries as well.

"This is really fundamental research. The connection between what we do today and what will happen to patients is several steps away. We're not doing research directly on any particular test that will be used (in the future), for example. But what we are doing is laying the groundwork for the next generation of medicine. Almost every blood test that we do in a person is looking at some chemical that's in the blood. It could be, and very often is, a protein."

One of the goals of the proteomics research, Dr. Greene said, is to develop methods for looking at the entire spectrum of proteins in a blood sample. "We're developing the technology that will allow that to happen; high sensitivity, high reproducibility technology that doesn't exist now," he said. "If we're able to do that, then looking at protein in the blood provides a clue to what's going on in the body much in the same way that looking at somebody's genetic background tells you about their risk.

"With genetics, it's all about risk. With proteins it's actually more about what's happening right now. Having somebody's genetic code on a chip, like we see in the movies, is great and it tells you about what might happen. But when we take a blood test and see what proteins are in the blood or other body fluids, or a biopsy sample, then in essence what we're seeing is what's really going on in that person, not what their risk is, but the reality."

Building a Multidisciplinary Facility
Fundraising is underway for the new building to house the Biotechnology and Bioengineering Center, Dr. Greene said, and the work to secure grants for the wide variety of research projects is ongoing.

"We're hoping to have a building occupied in late 2006 or early 2007," said Dr. Greene. "It has already gone to architects and we have preliminary bids. The first thing is the issue of space. As I said, the big thing that we do is recruit faculty. But we also design instrumentation and that takes a lot of space. We need facilities that are not typical on this campus for instrumentation development.

"I was just talking to a computational biologist who has made huge advances in our program because he's discovered a novel way of treating data that nobody had ever thought of before. Those ideas now feed back on our ability to create an actual instrument around his idea, and then that will impact the way the physician is able to generate a blood sample. So those people will need to work together."

"It's all about the intellectual atmosphere that we build. This kind of activity is very, very multidisciplinary. We need space in which engineers and life science people and physicians and physiologists and biochemists can all come together and work side by side. Otherwise it just doesn't happen."

Dan Ullrich
HealthLink Contributing Writer

MCW Health News presents up-to-date information on patient care and medical research by the physicians of the Medical College of Wisconsin.