Chinese researchers’ initiatives could put them ahead in international efforts to build a complete catalog of human proteins. In January, the Human Proteome Organization (HUPO) made strides toward the effort by coordinating the Human Proteome Project (HPP), whose goal is to identify the approximate 21,000 proteins encoded by the human genome, offer a detailed description of their function, abundance and subcellular localizations, and describe their various interactions. The HUPO Annual World Congress, held in Sydney in September, marked the official launch of the HPP. The Beijing Proteome Research Center, headed by biochemist He Fuchu, has received annual grants averaging approximately CNY 200 million ($30 million) as part of HUPO’s Chinese Human Proteome Project. He said that budget will double as the initiative expands to include proteins in the blood, brain, lungs, skin and other organs. The Pilot Hub of Encyclopedical proteomIX (PHOENIX), a national lab, is also set to receive CNY 1.2 billion ($156 million) from the Chinese government. Funding will also go to new instruments and facilities at Peking University, Tsinghua University and the Institute of Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and the Beijing Proteome Research Center.

Source: Nature