With the recent refresh of the HUPO Biology/Disease-driven Human Proteome Project (B/D-HPP) Executive Committee, we took the opportunity to get the thoughts of several members of the committee who completed their tenure. Drs. Corrales, Deutsch, Omenn, and Schmidt have all given their valuable time and leadership to the HUPO mission and have been critical to the continued growth of the B/D-HPP initiatives and the continued adoption of proteomics advances toward understanding pressing questions in health and life sciences. We asked them what they would like to share with the HUPO community on this occasion.
Dr. Fernando Corrales served as co-chair, chair, and past-chair of the B/D-HPP from 2015–2021. As the Human Liver Proteome Project (HLPP) chair, he also has led the HLPP since 2014. Regarding what he sees as the importance of the B/D-HPP at large, the former chair said that it has represented to him an “opportunity to translate the essence of proteomics” and particularly into “functional understanding of biological systems.” Dr. Corrales, who is Professor at the Spanish National Centre for Biotechnology, sees the B/D-HPP as the masterpiece of the upcoming Grand Project once it is integrated with the other resources of the HPP. The experience sharing the coordination of the B/D-HPP with Drs. Jenny van Eyk and Ileana Cristea has been outstanding and the efforts of all persons on board during these years have been generous, says Dr. Corrales.
“Defining protein function is something clearly dependent on the biological environment where proteins develop their activity and B/D Teams integrate an ideal research network to dissect so far hidden functionalities and place them into the adequate physiological and/or pathological framework." – Fernando Corrales
Dr. Eric Deutsch, who served on the executive committee for five years, agrees on the importance of ensuring B/D-HPP initiatives receive continued community support. “I wish the new committee well in working to increase active participation of all B/D-HPP initiatives”, adds the longtime HUPO leader and Principal Scientist at the Institute of Systems Biology.
Dr. Gil Omenn is the Harold T. Shapiro Distinguished University Professor at University of Michigan and a longtime chair of the HUPO Human Proteome Project (HPP). He served on the B/D-HPP executive committee for a decade alongside Drs. Ruedi Aebersold, Jenny van Eyk, Fernando Corrales, Ileana Cristea, and now Nicki Packer as chairs, and chaired the Human Plasma Proteome Project from the launch of HUPO in 2002. Under his leadership, the Plasma, Brain, Liver, Cancer, and Cardiovascular Proteome Projects were brought together with many emerging projects to form the B/D-HPP in 2011 and join the Chromosome-centric C-HPP in the HUPO HPP. This year, Dr. Omenn has rotated off the B/D-HPP executive committee after a successful term that saw him continue to lead the executive committee with his vision, which culminated in an HPP Metrics of the Human Proteome paper in the annual special issues of the Journal of Proteome Research[1] and a special perspective article in Molecular & Cellular Proteomics[2].
“The B/D-HPP teams have made important contributions to the global explosion of research utilizing proteomics to reveal pathways, networks, mechanisms, and biomarkers underlying a great range of biological processes and diseases,” – Gil Omenn
Dr. Frank Schmidt is an active leader in the B/D-HPP community and served on the executive committee. As his term concludes, Dr. Schmidt said he will remember his time with the committee “very positively”. The transition to the digital age during the COVID-19 pandemic was especially memorable, "when we successfully held our first professional webinars and were able to push new ideas under the excellent leadership of Ileana [Cristea] and Fernando [Corrales]”, reminisces Dr. Schmidt, who is Professor at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar. He wishes the new committee good luck as a new crop of members from the proteomics community continue the initiative missions.
We look forward to continuing the work of the HUPO B/D-HPP in engaging the proteomics community and promoting the adaption of proteomics advances toward life and medical sciences. We welcome the new and continuing HUPO B/D-HPP Executive Committee members for 2022–2023:
- Dr. Michal Bassani, Immunopeptidomics, continuing
- Dr. Bogdan Budnik, Single cell proteomics, new
- Dr. Ferdinando Cerciello, Cancer, continuing
- Dr. Ileana Cristea (Co-chair/Past Chair), Infectious disease, continuing
- Dr. Ruth Huttenhain, Signaling and protein networks & ECR, new
- Dr. Maggie Lam, Cardiovascular, continuing
- Dr. Ed Nice, Cancer, new
- Dr. Aleksandra Nita-lazar, Infectious disease, continuing
- Dr. Nicki Packer (Chair), Glycoproteomics, continuing
- Dr. Uwe Völker, Clinical proteomics, new
Footnotes:
[1] Omenn GS et al. Research on the Human Proteome Reaches a Major Milestone: >90% of Predicted Human Proteins Now Credibly Detected, According to the HUPO Human Proteome Project. J Proteome Res. 2020 Dec 4; 19(12): 4735–4746. PMID: 32931287
[2] Omenn GS. Reflections on the HUPO Human Proteome Project, the flagship project of the Human Proteome Organization, at 10 years. Mol Cell Proteomics. 2021 Feb 26;20:100062. PMID: 33640492.
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