Title: ``The Indiana Proteomics Consortium: A focused, collaborative approach to the development of new Proteomics Tools''
Speaker: Dr J Hurrell, President, Indiana Proteomics Consortium
Place: KRAN G016; Tuesday, November 5, 2002, 4:30pm

Abstract

The Indiana Proteomics Consortium is a unique partnership positioned to leverage the world-class analytical chemistry expertise of Indiana University and Purdue University with the commercial drug discovery and development expertise of Eli Lilly and Company. These collaborations will allow the Consortium to develop innovative tools and technologies for proteomic research that will be commercialized through the spin off of new companies, development of joint ventures or the establishment of licensing partnerships.

The Consortium has been established as a for profit company with founding capitalization of $12 million. Projects undertaken by the Consortium are commercially focused and were identified by an analysis of the proteomics market and the "best in class" companies in that market. Through these analyses, the Consortium identified a number of technology gaps in the existing Proteomics products. Projects designed to develop technology through to proof of principle to close these technology gaps are being funded at both Purdue and Indiana Universities by the Consortium. Current projects are focused on the following:

*The separation and analysis of glycoproteins
*The separation of complex protein mixtures and deposition of components onto microarrays
*The interfacing of rapid, high-efficiency micro separation methods with high-throughput MALDI MS
*The application of spectroscopic methods to the measurement and monitoring of protein modifications.

In addition to the above projects, the Consortium has established a commercialization conduit for proteomics technology developed by researchers at Eli Lilly and Company. An additional project for the development of an informatics solution for the problem of extraction of high valued information from the large quantities of data being generated by the new high throughput proteomics tools is under consideration.