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Launching a New Era of Precision Medicine through Protein Chemistry and Biology

Groundbreaking technologies for the analysis of human proteins developed by the Chemistry of Life Processes Institute (CLP) distinguish Northwestern as a world leader in the fast-growing field of proteomics and protein sequencing, the next great wave in discovery science.

In collaboration with Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine we are using this new knowledge of protein structure and function to better connect genes to disease to create more sensitive diagnostics and identify new targets for drug development. With a bold focus on diseases of the brain, the Institute is revolutionizing diagnostics and, for the first time, introducing effective treatments to people with Lou Gehrig’s and Alzheimer’s disease.

Our goal over the next five years is to extend these transformative capabilities to new treatments and diagnostics for kidney and liver disease, transplant rejection, and prostate cancer.  In doing so, CLP will help launch a new era of precision medicine driven by precision proteomics.

CLP is at the forefront of the Human Proteoform Project, a global effort to map all of the different forms of proteins (proteoforms) in all of the organs and tissues in the human body. We have already projected the potential societal impact and feasibility of this Big Science project.  Now we are partnering with federal funding agencies and scientists across the world to realize this ambitious initiative. Simultaneously, we are preparing the next generation of scientific leaders by training them in the cross-disciplinary skills and methods needed to pioneer solutions to the most intractable problems of health and disease.