Led by Hanno Steen, PhD, the Proteomics Center at Children's Hospital Boston offers the most up-to-date proteomics equipment currently available. This includes the latest equipment for protein separation and several state-of-the-art mass spectrometers, which detect and quantify proteins in a sample and measure them to determine their structure and characteristics. The Center draws on the capabilities of the Children's Hospital Informatics Program (CHIP), whose powerful computational tools help reveal how groups of proteins interact and collaborate to do the work of the body.
Proteomic Center projects involve both basic science and disease-related research. Investigators study the proteins encoded by an array of genes to better understand how diseases arise, while clinical researchers use the Center for screening application -- analyzing patients' blood and urine samples to find proteins that can serve as diagnostic and prognostic "markers" for a variety of diseases.
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