ProCan Project to Advance Proteome Studies at CMRI

The Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI), through an alliance with life science analytical technologies company SCIEX has announced the opening of ProCanTM , the Australian Cancer Research Foundation International Centre for the Proteome of Human Cancer. Established with a $10 million grant from the Australian Cancer Research Foundation, the partnership will enable large-scale proteome studies helping to industrialise the process of analysing tissue samples and identifying cancer biomarkers. The opening of the Centre was marked by the ProCan Industrialised Proteomics Centre Symposium, highlights of which can be accessed in the SCIEX online symposium portal.

Research will be carried out on a suite of SCIEX TripleTOF® systems using a tissue-based method developed at Ruedi Aebersold's lab at the ETH, Zurich* which will profile thousands of tumour samples per year, to identify and develop markers of disease risk, diagnosis, response to therapy, and prognosis on an industrial scale, while developing standard operating procedures for other facilities worldwide. Exclusive collaborators, include Pressure Biosciences (PBIO) and Beckman Coulter, using pressure cycling technology and liquid handling workstations for increased sample preparation, throughput, and reproducibility.

"This collaboration with SCIEX enables ProCan to advance our vision to scale-up the process of finding causes of cancers, which is essential for earlier diagnosis and the development of new and even personalised approaches," said Professor Phil Robinson, Head of the Cell Signalling Unit at CMRI and co-developer of ProCan. "The opening of this centre isn’t just an exciting milestone for us and for SCIEX, but it’s exciting for the advancement of precision medicine at-large, as the information generated by ProCan will ultimately be free for anyone to access, helping scientists all around the world with rapid diagnoses and treatment planning."

Jean-Paul Mangeolle, President of SCIEX states, "Many years of partnerships and work have helped bring ProCan to fruition. Working closely with world-renowned scientists and complementary cutting edge technologies is driving new innovations like never before, offering better solutions for accelerating cancer research. We at SCIEX are thrilled to be a part of this effort."

*published in Nature Medicine