Speaking at the 10th anniversary conference of the Swiss Institute ofBioinformatics in Berne, Switzerland, its director Professor Ron Appeldescribed his institute as a "Swiss success story". He said that he wasproud that as pioneers at the heart of science one of the SIB's 25 workinggroups was today able to announce the completion of the annotation ofhuman proteins.
Professor Amos Bairoch, head of the SIB's Swiss-Prot group said: "If humanDNA is the script of life, proteins are its actors, its living embodiment."
He added that the human genome-sequencing project produced a dictionary.This new encyclopaedia takes one major step further by looking at life asit is really organised in our body at the molecular level. The resultswill speed up the scientific work which aims to improve our quality oflife. Particularly when it comes to understanding what life is, and how wecan combat genetic-based diseases.
While proteins are the essence of life, when they become defective theycan cause much suffering and often early death. Man's knowledge ofproteins such as insulin and haemoglobins is crucial to combating diseasessuch as cancer, Alzheimer's, cystic fibrosis and haemophilia.
Professor Bairoch said, "The general public would understand some of theentries in our protein encyclopaedia. Insulin, for instance, is a smallprotein that controls glucose levels in our blood. The performance-boosterEPO is the protein used illegally by some cyclists. In the human body ittakes many forms. But we detect its use in sport because competitors use amanufactured form which is not natural."
The new protein encyclopaedia, which will evolve further as our knowledgeis refined, now informs a major part of the work of thousands of healthresearchers around the word. The data covers 20,325 human proteins. Theinformation could ultimately be used for developing exact treatments forindividual patients based on an understanding of their specific proteinset.
The breakthrough can be seen as one of the 21st century's major lifescience outcomes. It can help improve our chances of defeating a varietyof diseases, by enabling researchers to model the interaction betweenindividual patients, diseases and drugs.
Progress on the Human Protein Initiative (HPI) project has been rapid. Tenyears ago, we had good data on less than 1000 proteins. Two years ago, wehad good entries for 15,000, now the collection is complete. But one ofthe remaining challenges, though, is still to complete the sameencyclopaedia of proteins for other animals.
Professor Bairoch said, "More than 45,000 scientific papers were read. Weexamined databases that were out there to get a picture of the knowledgewhich existed. We had to go out and find the material."
This new protein encyclopaedia is published online and available for freeto users. In printed form, it would correspond to 57 volumes of about1,000 pages each.
SIB director praise donors, scientists and working groups
The Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics director Professor Ron Appel closedthe press conference praising the collaboration between five universitiesand two institutes of technology across the length and breadth ofSwitzerland.
He said: "Their collective success shows what can be achieved when expertspool their knowledge and vision.
"The SIB is a pioneering institute. More successes can be expected infuture. These will add to what is already an impressive track record inall the fields of bio-informatics technology research we work in."
He also emphasised that without the support of the Swiss government andinternational partners, none of this would be possible, "so we owe a bigthanks to them", he added.
In addition, Professor Bairoch thanked the Swiss government, internationalfunding agencies and all the scientists who contributed to their recentbreakthrough. He said, "ours is just one of the 25 SIB groups working atthe frontiers of scientific knowledge for the benefit of mankind".