Strengthening Clinical Proteomics Capabilities

“By strengthening these clinical proteomics capabilities, we can add a valuable data layer in precision medicine research, working closely with clinical genomics programs and regional clinical trial units, as well as biobanks” said Carina Sihlbom, unit manager at Proteomics Core Facility.

The grant is a third of the total amount of SEK 41 million, given to the Swedish national infrastructure for biological mass spectrometry BioMS, and shared by local nodes.

Advanced MS and Automated Robots

The investment will be used for a new sophisticated mass spectrometry instrument with ion mobility for data-independent acquisition MS (DIA-MS), as well as parallel reaction monitoring (PRM) MS-assays.

This will provide a great robustness for routine operations, and high throughput of samples and data. Researchers will also be able to use the high sensitivity of the instrument to identify more peptides and posttranslational modifications (PTM).

“Our aim here is to adapt this method to support clinical trials also in prospective sample analysis” Carina Sihlbom said.

The investment also includes automated sample preparation robotics. For researchers, this will mean time efficient sample preparation, as well as standardization of workflows.

“This type of robotics highly increases the number of samples handled per day while reducing the cost per sample.”

Every third or fourth year, similar investments when it comes to technological importance and financial range, have been made at PCF, Carina explains, adding that the Proteomics Core Facility has competent staff with long experience in many different fields of MS. 

“We are already familiar with these techniques and will also get specific training in the new software so that we can continue to give expert support to our users”.

Valuable for Diagnosis and Treatment

When having the new instruments and robotics ready, Carina hopes that this will aid research that leads to better diagnosis and treatments for patients.

“The entire approach on how we diagnose and make treatment decisions is undergoing a paradigm shift in the form of precision medicine. Targeted drugs are tailored for an individual patient based on extensive and informative biomarker data” Carina said.

The precision medicine field is in part technology driven and is now rapidly moving toward including proteome analysis to represent the molecular phenotype. This will result in improved capabilities to select most effective treatment for each patient leading to reduced treatment toxicity, improved outcome and lower drug development costs.