World's largest protein study 'invaluable' for understanding disease – expert

The world's largest study of proteins circulating in the human body begins this month in the UK. The aim is to pinpoint how the disease develops and pave the way for simple blood tests to detect things like cancer and dementia years before a doctor can diagnose them.

of UK Biobank Pharma-proteomics projects could become “an important piece of the jigsaw for scientists” and could transform medicine by the end of the decade, experts have suggested.

This will allow researchers to understand how genes, lifestyle and environment cause disease through changes in protein levels in the blood.

Blood tests may also be created to more quickly and accurately diagnose autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and Crohn's disease.

Proteomics is the large-scale study of proteins, analyzing their role in disease and how protein structure and function cause disease.

This new project is an extension of an innovative pilot program that published data on around 3,000 proteins from blood samples of 54,000 UK Biobank participants.

This pilot data has already allowed researchers to identify elevated levels of the protein in patients who develop dementia up to 10 years before diagnosis, and up to seven years before diagnosis of certain cancers.

Professor Sir Rory Collins, Principal Investigator and Chief Executive Officer of UK Biobank, said: “The data collected in this study will enable scientists around the world to carry out health-related research. “We will be able to explore how lifestyle, environment and genetics influence development in some people through proteins.” Some diseases are specific and others are not.

“This will allow us to identify who is sick, who is likely to develop the disease, before the disease develops, and how to prevent those symptoms before they develop. You will be able to consider it.”

The large-scale project, supported by a consortium of 14 pharmaceutical companies, aims to measure up to 5,400 proteins from 600,000 blood samples.

This includes samples taken from 500,000 people aged from early 40s to late 60s when the UK Biobank study began 15-20 years ago, and 100,000 UK Biobank volunteers 10-15 years later. Contains the second sample taken.

Professor Naomi Allen, lead scientist at UK Biobank, said: “This is of great value because it shows how changes in an individual's protein levels from middle to later life contribute to the development of various diseases. This is because researchers will be able to see if there is an effect.”

“It will accelerate research into the causes of diseases and the development of new treatments that target specific proteins associated with those diseases.”

Professor Allen added of the pilot: “With protein-level data, we can get a more complete picture of how genes, lifestyle, and environmental exposures cause disease through changes in proteins.

“This means it adds an important piece to the jigsaw puzzle for scientists to understand how the disease develops, and provides solid clues about what can be done to prevent and treat the disease.

“Pilot data has already shown that certain proteins are elevated in people who continue to develop various types of cancer for up to seven years before a clinical diagnosis. , it can take up to 10 years for a clinical diagnosis to be made.

“It may really be possible to develop simple blood tests that can detect the disease much earlier than is currently possible.

“For example, in the case of dementia, you can imagine that if you have a blood test that measures a handful of proteins that are particularly increased in people who later develop Alzheimer's disease, they would benefit from taking a new drug. These are commercially available and are specifically designed to treat early stage disease.

“data Pilot studies have shown that certain proteins are significantly increased in individuals with autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and Crohn's disease.

“We can see how simple blood tests can be used to complement existing diagnostic tools to diagnose these types of diseases more accurately and perhaps more quickly.”

Professor Allen said the evidence from the trials highlighted how some drugs could be repurposed to treat other conditions.

“Some of the proteins known to be important for immunity have been linked to the development of various psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, depression and bipolar disorder,” she added. .

“And given that there are already drugs available that specifically target some of these proteins that are used for other conditions, repurposing these existing drugs for these neuropsychiatric disorders is a great idea. It's a real opportunity.

“The same has been shown for some chemotherapeutic drugs, and some proteins associated with specific cancers have already been mapped to existing chemotherapeutic drugs used for other types of cancer. It has been.”

Tens of millions of pounds of investment is understood to be provided by pharmaceutical groups including Johnson & Johnson. AstraZeneca, pfizer And GSK.

The funding will initially support scientists to measure protein levels from 300,000 samples, which is expected to take around 12 months, and this data will be released in stages from 2026. , available to UK Biobank-approved researchers.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with Dr. Chris Whelan, director of neuroscience, data science and digital health for Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine and head of the Pharmaproteomics Project. We all have 600,000 people and we're confident we can reach that goal. ”

The full dataset is expected to be added to the UK Biobank research and analysis platform by 2027.

“By the end of this decade, we expect to see a transformation in the way healthcare and drug development is conducted,” added Dr. Whelan.

Sir Rory said: The value of data is infinite. ”

Dr Whelan also said technology has supported the project's expansion.

“We are now able to perform proteomics across 600,000 samples in a similar period of time as the pilot project, but at lower cost and efficiency,” Dr. Whelan said.

“A lot of that is made possible by advances in robotics. So this time around we're going to use advanced robotics, which will increase efficiency, shorten delivery times, and reduce the chance of human error.” Masu.”

He added that some academics are “combining advanced artificial intelligence and proteomics data to develop powerful new disease predictive tests, including blood tests for complex diseases such as dementia.”

His Highness the Minister of Science Patrick Vallance He praised the plan as having “the potential to open an era of new possibilities.”