A comprehensive “proteogenomic” analysis of the proteins, genes, and RNA transcription involved in pediatric brain tumors has yielded a more complete understanding of these tumors, which are the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in children. The results could help physicians more accurately identify different types of tumors and methods for treating them.

In case you missed it, this final article (part 2 of 2) in the Investigator Spotlight Series, developed and written by Dr. Dawn Hayward, Office Clinical Cancer Proteomic Research (OCCPR) NCI Communications Fellow, highlights our up and coming Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC) researchers and their work. Part 2 features scientists from CPTAC’s Proteogenomic Data Analysis Centers (PGDACs). Find out more about the interesting and unique tools that are being developed and implemented by this up-and-coming crew of rising stars! Responses edited for length and clarity.

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and other institutions have applied powerful proteogenomics approaches to better understand the biological complexity of breast cancer. With this approach, the researchers were able to propose more precise diagnostics for known treatment targets, identify new tumor susceptibilities for translation into treatments for aggressive tumors and implicate new mechanisms whereby breast cancers resist treatment.

In a recent publication in the journal Clinical Chemistry, CPTAC investigators from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center described a robust technique for evaluating biomarker expression of key receptors in patients with breast cancer bone metastasis using non-decalcified bone biopsies in immuno multiple reaction monitoring mass spectroscopy (immuno-MRM-MS).

Protein glycosylation, the enzymatic process that attaches glycans or sugar molecules to proteins, plays a crucial role in cancer development processes, such as cell-cell adhesion, cell growth, ligand-receptor binding, and tumor metastasis. Aside from phosphorylation, other protein modifications have not been investigated in large-scale proteomic studies.

Almost 18 months ago, CPTAC researchers from the Integrative Omics Group at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), developed a stream-lined technique to increase the sensitivity of peptide phospho-group identification during mass spectral analysis. The solution, called the ‘boosting to amplify signal with isobaric labeling’ (BASIL), was developed to ‘see’ small spectrometric signals (typically from

In case you missed it, this third article (part 1 of 2) in the Investigator Spotlight Series, developed and written by Dr. Dawn Hayward, Office Clinical Cancer Proteomic Research (OCCPR) NCI Communications Fellow, highlights our up and coming Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC) researchers and their work. Part I features scientists from CPTAC’s Proteomic Characterization Centers (PCC) and Proteomic Translational Research Centers (PTRC). Read on for how these young investigators are developing and implementing their unique tools! Responses edited for length and clarity.

Announcing our newest data release for the Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC) Lung Squamous Cell Carcinoma (LSCC) Discovery study! Because LSCC accounts for about 30% of all lung cancers and has a ~20% 5-year survival rate, it’s imperative that cancer researchers learn more about the biology of this disease to find more effective treatments. CPTAC investigators have led this charge by examining tumor and normal adjacent tissue from 108 LSCC patients using multi-omics.

In a recent issue of Nature Communications, Clinical Proteomics Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC) researchers from Bing Zhang’s lab at Baylor College of Medicine describe a new bioinformatics software tool developed to evaluate the quality of variant peptide identifications. Using a deep learning algorithm, the software AutoRT, accurately predicts peptide retention time (that is the time points when peptides elute from the liquid chromatography column) based on its sequence.

The NCI’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Development Center has released a program solicitation (PHS 2021-1) which includes a new, Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC)-inspired grant. The announcement calls for the development of high-throughput, single-cell, unbiased discovery proteomic technologies. The goal of this opportunity is to advance our knowledge of cancer development and progression, and to enable robust cancer biomarker discovery and clinical application on a micro-scale.