Gene-Centric Human Proteome Project: Vision and Reality

抄録

Following the success of the human genome project, it becomes obvious to think about mapping the whole human proteome. Proteins are the "building blocks of life", constitute the functional work force of the human body, and are potential targets for many drugs. It is estimated that, for nearly half of the proteins encoded in the human genome, there is no experimental evidence for their existence. The cellular locations as well as the functions of these proteins remain to be explored. Thus, I will address the general consensus that has been building in the proteome community as to why the human proteome project (HPP) needs to be launched globally and what the possible technical and biological impacts of execution of a global Gene-Centric HPP would be. In Korea, the current efforts are focused on mapping chromosome 13. We realized that there are many technical and biological issues that need to be overcome prior to execution of the full scale mapping. In addition to this subject, I will also touch on some real issues related to potential bottlenecks as well as expected cost for this emerging big project. (Supported by a grant from the Korea Healthcare Technology R&D Project, Ministry for Health, Welfare, and Family Affairs, Republic of Korea [A030003 to YKP].)