The Harvard Center for Proteomics Research (HCPR) was established by The Proteomics Interest Group (P.I.G.), an interdepartmental initiative of 16 faculty members from all departments within the Division of Biological Sciences (DBS) at the Harvard School of Public Health. Investigators have taken leadership in this interdepartmental effort to set up an infrastructure for protein analysis at a system-wide level ("proteomics"). The facility is associated with the Department of Genetics and Complex Diseases.

There are two major applications for proteomics research that we wish to offer to our research and training community:

1. Protein expression profiling using two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (2D PAGE)

2. Identification of proteins and protein assemblies purified from complex samples using LC-MS/MS.

The research activities within DBS and the Harvard NIEHS Center for Environmental Health use these applications in order to answer major questions in basic biology relating to the effects of pathogens and toxins. The projects use samples derived from organisms across the evolutionary ladder, including viruses, bacteria, yeast, parasites, transgenic mice, mammalian tissue culture cells, and human organs. 

The scope of research activities is wide-ranging, and includes large scale analysis of the ubiquitin-dependent proteolysis system, analyzing determinants of cellular responses to radicals and oxidative stress, determining factors controlling membrane transport of metals and peptide growth factors, analyzing signaling and transcriptional activation pathways in cell lineage determination, determining protein interactions involved in establishing cell polarity, and many others. With the recent advent of whole genome sequences for most of the organisms studied here, the above topics can be addressed in a revolutionary system-wide format. 

The existing facility provides services for protein profiling by 2DGE that are not available through any other Harvard facility. Another goal of HPR is therefore to reach out to other investigators within Harvard and the larger scientific research community by accumulating expertise in state-of-the-art proteomics technologies.
 
 

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