Personalised treatment becoming reality
Science for Life Lab in forefront of 'Age of Omics'
Life Science
Researchers at KTH's Science for Life Laboratory are taking the lead in finding key biomarkers that could enable more effective, individualised treatment of serious diseases.
The right treatment, for the right person, at the right time. That’s one of the aims behind the first-ever map of the human proteome, which was recently unveiled by researchers at Sweden’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Uppsala University.
It’s also one of the biggest challenges for life science in the near future, says the leader of the Human Protein Atlas project, Mathias Uhlén, professor of microbiology at KTH.
Uhlén often compares the 20,000 known proteins in the human body as “Lego pieces”. But they’re no playthings. As head of Science for Life Laboratory at KTH, the professor leads a large team of researchers who examine the structure and function of proteins. The work is multidisciplinary and complex, but the reason behind it is straightforward.
“Ninety eight percent of drugs address proteins,” Uhlén says. “By going through every protein and knowing about the protein, we also know about the disease.”
With 13 million images of tissues throughout the body, the Human Protein Atlas picks up where the Human Genome Project left off – providing researchers around the world with a map of where in the body the 20,000 or so known proteins can be found. Using this open resource, scientists can hunt for “biomarkers” that could make it not only possible to diagnose diseases earlier, but to more accurately predict the impact on the individual patient, reduce suffering and prescribe treatment that will result in the best response.
Put simply, a biomarker is a biological characteristic that reflects a physiological change in the body during or after an illness. A typical example is troponin, which is secreted into the blood when a heart muscle is damaged following a heart attack.
To Uhlén, they are a key to patient well-being and safety. “Biomarkers enable doctors to give the correct diagnosis early one, give the right treatment, avoid serious side effects and eliminate the need for x-rays, invasive procedures and tissue samples,” he says.
The Atlas has already been used by researchers at the Science for Life Laboratory to identify specific markers that could lead to more accurate and earlier diagnosis and treatment of cancer, malaria, ALS, multiple sclerosis and muscular dystrophy.
And recently, the researchers published an article in Science detailing the first major analysis based on the Human Protein Atlas, including a detailed picture of the proteins that are linked to cancer, the number of proteins present in the bloodstream, and the targets for all approved drugs on the market.
But the Atlas is not just a local resource. “We have thousands of scientists going into the database each week,” he says.
The advances in genomics and proteomics herald what Uhlén refers to as the “age of omics”.
“The challenge of life science is to take the genomics and move into the proteins and the metabolites, and give society different kinds of products,”Uhlén says. “We must move away from the average drug for the average person to individualised drug treatment.”
David Callahan
For more information, contact Tove Alm at tove.alm@scilifelab.se