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Data and Technology sector_ico_Health_trans Human Health

Development and commercialization of standardized reagents and guidelines for mass spectrometry-based proteomics

POC004
  • Project Leaders: Christoph Borchers
  • Institutions: University of Victoria (UVic)
  • Budget: $200000
  • Program/Competition: Proof of Concept
  • Genome Centre(s): Genome British Columbia
  • Status: Closed

Aside from the overall time it usually takes to develop a drug before it can be introduced into the market – usually > 10 years – two major challenges to developing a new drug are the need for high quality structures of the known drug targets, typically proteins; and the lack of instant feedback on the validity of the modeled drug-binding site. Likewise, many types of diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and some cancers, start to develop long before symptoms appear – making treatment decisions and drug development even more difficult. Two related projects are applying proteomics methods to these problems by developing serum protein biomarkers for diagnostic tests, by developing rational drug design methods to translate information on specific proteins as potential drug targets into lead structures, and by creating a set of guidelines, tools, and protocols for use on the most common MS platforms in large and small-scale proteomics initiatives. As of January 2014, co-marketing agreement with Agilent is in place and NDA and MTA with Bruker has been signed for kit testing. Kits were launched at HUPO 2013 in Yokohama, Japan (September, 2013) and exposed at Agilent booth. The first kit orders have been received and shipped to customers. Furthermore, Agilent has added MRM Proteomics to its vendor list so that its employees can order kits for internal use at Agilent. Preliminary discussions have taken place with Thermo Scientific regarding developing kits for their MS platform.