On to the Proteome

Following its success in genomics, China is ramping up its human proteome initiative, Nature News reports. The Beijing Proteome Research Center, which was part of HUPO's Human Liver Proteome Project, is undergoing a name change to become the Chinese Human Proteome Project and is seeing its budget of about 200 million renminbi, or US$30 million, double. In addition, the Chinese government is funding a national lab, called Pilot Hub of Encyclopedical proteomIX or PHOENIX, to the tune of 1.2 billion renminbi. "The investment is impressive and unprecedented," Ruedi Aebersold at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology tells Nature. "The launch of a large project in China would give the whole HPP project a significant boost." McGill University's John Bergeron adds that depending on data quality, which is currently being determined, "China could well take the lead" in proteomics.