£ 1 million Strategic Award for Lamond and Cantrell Lab collaboration

24 Oct 2014

The Wellcome Trust have funded a £1m Strategic Award, entitled, "Multidimensional Proteomic Analysis of Metabolic Stress & Cellular Phenotypes", to support a collaborative project led by Professors Angus
Lamond and Doreen Cantrell in the College of Life Sciences.

The main aim of this new project is develop innovative proteomics technology, focusing on the system-wide characterisation of multi-protein complexes and their dynamics in  cells of the immune system.

The many thousands of proteins encoded by the genome regulate most physiological processes within cells and organisms. Almost all drug targets are proteins and many forms of human disease and inherited genetic disorders result from alterations in protein expression and/or activity. To understand fundamental cellular response and disease mechanisms, it is therefore essential to have efficient methods for systematically detecting and analysing most cell proteins. Computational tools are also needed to share the resulting large-scale information effectively with the biomedical research community.

The current project will develop new proteomics technology to study the biology of key cells of the immune system. It will help to define the differences between different classes of immune cells and shed light onthe mechanisms of action of  immunosuppresive drugs.

This strategic award will help to build the Dundee Laboratory for Quantitative Proteomics into a major centre of proteomics expertise in the UK.  This laboratory is based in the newly opened Life Sciences Discovery Centre at the University of Dundee. The strategic award will also promote growing collaborations between the University of Dundee and other leading centres of research excellence in the UK and abroad, including the European Bioinformatics Institute in Hinxton.

Dean of the College of Life Sciences, Professor Julian Blow said, “I am delighted that the Wellcome Trust have awarded this money to Angus and Doreen’s project; this is exactly the kind of research which the new Discovery Centre was set up to propagate. Collaboration between these two groups in scientific research and technological expertise increases the potential for translational impact exponentially – in both the fields of immunology and quantitative proteomics.”

» more