Dear Colleague,
The NCI's Clinical Proteomic Technologies for Cancer (CPTC) initiative has made tremendous progress knocking down barriers to the field which is indicative of both the dedication to the highest quality of research by its investigators and commitment to open standards. CPTC has demonstrated the effectiveness of a multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional approach - and in doing so, addressed many of the long-standing variability issues that result from analytical platforms which has significantly impacted the measurement of real biological differences. In short, CPTC investigators have developed an evidence-based proteomics pipeline through the development and use of standards.
Having achieved this initial goal, CPTC has been approved to develop a network of Proteome Characterization Centers (PCCs). The PCCs are expected to foster multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary interactions using data and selected biospecimens from cancer genomics programs (e.g., The Cancer Genome Atlas and others) to systematically begin to define the functional human cancer proteome that may derive from defined alterations in cancer genomes. This approach to extend and build upon the success of the human cancer genome is expected to further our understanding of cancer at the molecular level and drive the development of clinically-relevant protein targets. In doing so, we hope to drive the further development of proteomic technologies.
Lastly, we continue to work with the international proteomics community on open access data policies in order to accelerate the pace of discovery in proteomic research. Specifically, a follow-up workshop to the Amsterdam Principles was recently held in Sydney, Australia to begin defining quality metrics for data submission. This workshop was endorsed by the journal Molecular & Cellular Proteomics and included participants from academia, industry, European regulatory agencies and NIH partners from the National Center for Biotechnology Information and National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. We invite you to review "Amsterdam Principles Down Under" for an overview summary of this year's meeting.