The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) and the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) jointly organize the first international conference on cell biology of brain. The ASCB/EMBO meeting takes place in Philadelphia on the 2-4 of December 2017.

The conference brings together a program covering presentations from molecular structure and function analysis to signalling pathways, immunity and cellular interplay in organoids.

At the meeting, Dr. Emma Lundberg presents "What is an atlas and why is it important to build?" in a subgroup aiming to discuss the creation of a multiscale, multidimensional Human Cell Atlas...Read more

At the EMBO|EMBL symposia "From Single to Multi-omics: Applications and Challenges in Data Integration" in Heidelberg, Germany, on November 13, Dr Linn Fagerberg presents the talk entitled "Integrative omics profiling within the Swedish SCAPIS SciLifeLab (S3) Wellness Profiling program". The talk focuses on the integration of data retrieved from the analysis of biological samples collected within the SCAPIS project using different technological platforms. On the same day, Dr Fredrik Edfors participates in the poster session with a poster entitled "Gene specific correlation between protein and RNA"...Read more

Dr Cecilia Lindskog, presents a plenary lecture on October 31 entitled "The Human Protein Atlas - implications for human biology and precision medicine" on the Clinical Proteomics, Postgenome Medicine conference in Moscow, Russia. Dr Lindskog is highlighted as one of the key speakers of the conference.

The 300+ international participants at the conference include medical advisors, scientists and business representatives to bridge translation of research findings to clinical use. The conference opens the fields of "omics" science (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics) to clinical practioners...Read more

The Human Protein Atlas at the Science for Life Laboratory (SciLifeLab) are teaming up with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to strengthen research in cell biology and proteomics.

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which was founded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, provides financial and engineering support for the Human Cell Atlas, an ambitious international collaboration that aims to create a reference atlas of all cells in the healthy human body as a resource for studies of health and disease...Read more

The Swedish Research Award 2017 has been awarded to Professor Mathias Uhlen by the foundation Research!Sweden. On the September 25th Mathias Uhlen will receive the award for research accomplishments regarding mapping of human proteins within the Human Protein Atlas. The mission of the Research!Sweden foundation is to raise awareness regarding the importance of medical research - for health and prosperity by honoring every year one researcher or politician with the award.

Anna Nilsson Vindefjärd general secretary of Research!Sweden motivates the nomination "Mathias Uhlén's research is extremely valuable both for today and future precision medicine...Read more

Next week on the 17th to 21th of September, the human proteome organization (HUPO), is hosting the 16th HUPO World Congress in Dublin, Ireland. Several Human Protein Atlas-associated researchers will attend the meeting and represent the project in various sessions, including plenary and invited lectures, oral presentations and poster sessions.

HUPO is an international scientific organization representing and promoting proteomics through international cooperation and collaborations by fostering the development of new technologies, techniques and training...Read more

The Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (KAW) cellebrates 100-years anniversary of funding research within natural sciences, technology and medicine. Since 1917, when KAW was established, grants have been awarded to enpower both scientific research and education beneficial for the society. Today the foundation is one of the largest private funders of scientific research in Europe.

The KAW funded Molecular Life Science - anniversary symposium is organised by the Royal Academy of Sciences together with KTH - The Royal Institute of Technology, Karolinska Institute and Stockholm University...Read more

This weekend Amsterdam is hosting the 29th European Congress of Pathology (ECP 2017). Fredrik Ponten, Co-Founder and Clinical Director of the Human Protein Atlas program, will present a lecture on September 3 entitled "Tissue-based map of the human proteome as tool for pathology". The focus of this year´s European congress will be "Pathology for Patient Care" highlighting the added value of the pathology science and discipline in providing care and improving health outcomes for patients and population. The congress is expected to provide updates on all aspects of diagnostic and molecular pathology...Read more

A new Pathology Atlas is launched today with an analysis of all human genes in all major cancers showing the consequence of their corresponding protein levels for overall patient survival. The difference in expression patterns of individual cancers observed in the study strongly reinforces the need for personalized cancer treatment based on precision medicine. In addition, the systems level approach used to construct the Pathology Atlas demonstrates the power of "big data" to change how medical research is performed.

The dream of personalized treatment for cancer patients takes a major step forward today with the launch by Swedish researchers of the Human Pathology Atlas...Read more

ELIXIR is an intergovernmental organisation that brings together life science resources from across Europe. These resources include databases, software tools, training materials, cloud storage and supercomputers. The goal of ELIXIR is to coordinate these resources so that they form a single infrastructure. This infrastructure makes it easier for scientists to find and share data, exchange expertise, and agree on best practices. Ultimately, it will help them gain new insights into how living organisms work.

On July 25, 2017, ELIXIR announced the selected list of ELIXIR Core Data Resources...Read more

Mathias Uhlen from the Human Protein Atlas will on July the 27 present a keynote lecture on the Europe-Korea Conference on Science and Technology (EKC2017) entitled "The Human Protein Atlas - implications for human biology, drug development and precision medicine"...Read more

This week, Scientific American announced ten emerging technologies with innovations that are on the verge of changing society. One of the technologies selected was the Human Cell Atlas, which aims to integrate research exploring the building-blocks of human cells using new emerging technologies. The list of ten emerging technologies was compiled in a collaboration between Scientific American and the World Economic Forum's Expert Network with suggestions from members of the Expert Network, the forum's Global Future Councils and Scientific American's board of advisers...Read more

Emma Lundberg Director of the Human Cell Atlas, will present a keynote lecture on June 14th, entitled ”The Cell Atlas: A subcellular map of the human proteome” on the 32ndCongress of the International Society for Advancement of Cytometry in Boston, USA.

On this occassion, the CYTO Congress together with the Human Protein Atlas have organized a challenge for analysis of the images from the Cell Atlas, culminating in presentation of results in the final conference session, where participants will present their analytical methods and findings...Read more

Mathias Uhlen, Director of the Human Protein Atlas program, will present a keynote lecture on May 23 entitled "Tissue-based protein profiles – implications for human biology, drug development and precision medicine " on the 6th Pharmaceutical Science World Congress (PSWC 2017) in Stockholm, Sweden.

The focus of this year´s world congress will be " Future medicine for one world " including research and development related to systems approaches to drug discovery development and clinical usage...Read more

Within the Human Protein Atlas project, antibodies are used to study the localization of protein in human tissues and cells. To generate the antibodies recombinant expression clones are produced from human RNA pools by cDNA synthesis, cloning and plasmid purification. These clones produce what is called Protein Epitope Signature Tags (PrESTs), a selected part of the target protein that should be recognized by antibodies.

Johan Rockberg, Associate Professor in antibody technology and directed evolution at KTH - Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden is the group leader for the epitope mapping and therapeutic antibodies group within the Human Protein Atlas...Read more

Today we meet Hanna Tegel, site director at the AlbaNova site of the Human Protein Atlas, and group leader of the Antigen and Antibody Factory group. She has been with the Human Protein Atlas from the very beginning, and her career has evolved alongside the project.

– I took my M.Sc. in biotechnology at KTH – the Royal Institute of Technology here in Stockholm, and in the end of my education I complemented it with some physiology at the Karolinska Institute. As a part of this course I did a project at KTH, and when it was time for me to do my masters thesis I turned to the same professor. Now he was involved in the start-up of the Human Protein Atlas project...Read more

In a recent publication in European Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, researchers use an affinity proteomics approach to analyze plasma profiles of a 362 proteins in 154 children with persistent or intermittent asthma and controls. To this end, antibody suspension bead arrays developed within the Human Protein Atlas was used.

Asthma is a common chronic childhood disease with many different phenotypes that need to be identified. Asthma affects approximately 300 million people worldwide and is characterized by bronchial hyperresponsiveness and reversible expiratory airflow limitation...Read more

Time has come for the second interview with a researcher within the Human Protein Atlas project. Today we meet Cecilia Lindskog, site director of the Tissue Atlas.

– I have a Master of Science in Biomedicine and a Doctor of Philosophy in pathology from the Faculty of Medicine, Uppsala University. I joined the Human Protein Atlas project in 2006, and also have industry experience in the biotechnology industry, from Oncomark Ltd, Dublin, Ireland.

Cecilia Lindskog´s main research interests have always been understanding the biology and functions of different organs, and the underlying mechanisms leading to cancer and other diseases...Read more

In a very recent paper in Journal of Histochemistry and Cytochemistry , with researchers from the Human Protein Atlas, it is shown that the expression of aquaporin 9 is limited in normal tissues, and high membranous expression is observed only in hepatocytes.

Aquaporin 9 is known to facilitate hepatocyte glycerol uptake. Murine aquaporin 9 protein expression has been verified in liver, skin, epididymis, epidermis and neuronal cells using knockout mice.

One goal of the current study was to systematically explore the distribution of aquaporin 9 expression in humans...Read more

As a follow up from last week´s blog post, on Jan Mulder and his work, we now present the most recent publication from his lab, on the anatomical distribution of neuronal calcium-binding proteins 1 and 2 (NECAB1/2) in rodent and human spinal cord.

Mingdong Zhang is the first author of the study and a PhD student registered in the Division of Molecular Neurobiology, Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics (MBB) at Karolinska Institutet.

– But much of my actual work is carried out in the Department of Neuroscience...Read more

In the Human Protein Atlas, there are 32 human organs and tissues analyzed. 2489 of the genes have significantly higher expression in one tissue compared to all other tissue types. Analysis show that testis is the organ with the largest number of tissue-enriched genes, with 1057 genes classified as testis enriched. The specific events and alterations of cell structure during spermatogenesis, and the fact that sperm has the ability to survive outside the male body may explain why testis has the largest number of enriched genes.

The organ with the second highest number of enriched genes is the brain with 381 enriched genes...Read more