Thousand Protein Multiplexed Mass Spectrometry Assay for Biomarker Discovery

In recent years, the interest given to disease biomarkers has boomed. Biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies are exploring ways to use biomarkers to speed up the drug development process, as well as to rapidly assess a diseases state, staging, progression and response to therapy. Multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) Mass Spectrometry (MS) has been shown to be well suited for the selective and sensitive quantification of proteins in plasma and has recently emerged as the technology of choice for disease biomarker study. The focus of this research project is to develop a quantitative multiplexed MRM assay as a biomarker discovery tool to directly detect and quantify proteins secreted from various tissues into plasma from the rat. This assay will then be used to screen and quantify protein biomarkers associated with various disease states, such as cardiovascular disease, in the rat plasma. The internship will be very beneficial to Caprion Proteomics, the partner organization, as the developed method will be implemented into their existing biomarker discovery and verification platform and offered to their clients as a biomarker discovery service for a variety of clinical diseases.

Faculty Supervisor:

Pierre Thibault

Student:

Marlene Gharib

Partner:

Caprion Biosciences

Discipline:

Biochemistry / Molecular biology

Sector:

Pharmaceuticals

University:

Université de Montréal