Development of Software for Comparative/Quantitative Clinical Proteomics

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): There is currently a significant demand for proteomics software which enables rapid and accurate data analysis. The advances over recent years in proteomics instrumentation and throughput coupled with the continued expa nsion of biological databases has resulted is researchers being able to produce very large amounts of data in relatively short time periods. Since informatics developments have not kept pace with the advances in analytical technologies, data analysis now r epresents a major bottleneck in proteomics-based discoveries. Thus, there is a significant need for software which assists researchers in analyzing their complex proteomics data in a high-throughput manner. The research proposed in this application is to d esign an a easy to use, cross- platform software package that will allow users to 1) integrate results from multiple database search engines 2) provide statistical validation of large proteome datasets, 3) facilitate easy comparisons between proteomes, 4) quantitate protein expression between biological samples, and 5) annotate protein identifications with biological data from public databases. The integrated software package described in this proposal, once commercialized, will greatly enhance the speed an d accuracy of proteomics research.The proposed studies will provide a software package which will greatly assist researchers in making use of their proteomics data. Since the proteomics field is continually growing, it is believed that the software develop ed here will be a valuable resource to a diverse set of researchers. Making this software available to the scientific community will increase the throughput of proteomics research and speed the discovery process.