The European Biomarkers Summit and Proteomics Europe conference will be preceded on 3 September 2007 by two half day courses.
08:30-12:15
Profiling Kinases and Phospho-Sites with Antibody-based Methods for Disease Biomarker and Drug Target Discovery
13:00-17:15
Protein Arrays for Biomarker Discovery and Protein Expression Profiling
Profiling Kinases and Phospho-Sites with Antibody-based Methods for Disease Biomarker and Drug Target Discovery
The course tutor will be Dr. Steven Pelech, Professor, University of British Columbia, Canada; President and Chief Scientific Officer, Kinexus Bioinformatics Corporation.
Who should attend?
The course will be suitable for scientists, technicians and post-doctoral trainees working within the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry or academia. The course is designed for people who are engaged in cell signalling research to uncover protein kinase drug targets and phosphoprotein biomarkers, and who are interested in adopting systems biology approaches for performing broader analyses. Special emphasis is placed on the application of antibody-based methods, including multi-immunobloting and antibody microarrays to detect and quantify low abundance cell signalling proteins.
Learning Objectives
• Learn about the nature of the kineome, phosphatome and phosphoproteome in humans and other species
• Be aware of the serious limitations of genomic analyses for cell signalling studies
• Become familiar with a range of proteomics methodologies available to track cell signalling proteins, including their advantages and limitations
• Find out about the real performance of commercial antibodies and antibody microarrays for biomarker discovery
• Learn about cost-effective strategies to validate and correlate the results from antibody microarrays
• Become familiar with real examples of practical applications of antibody-based proteomics approaches for discovery of biomarkers, drug targets and evaluation of drug leads
Topics and Course Organisation
| 08:30 |
Welcome and introduction to kinases, phosphatases and phosphoproteins
- detailed overview of key players in cell signalling networks
- importance of these proteins for disease diagnosis and treatment |
| 09:30 |
Overview of DNA microarray and PCR analysis of gene expression |
| 09:45 |
Introduction to protein-based methods for detection of protein levels and phosphorylation
- immunoblotting
- 2D gel electrophoresis
- mass spectrometry
- liquid chips – bead flow
- antibody, recombinant protein and peptide microarrays
- reverse microarrays |
| 10:15 |
Coffee break |
| 10:45 |
Strategies for application of antibody microarrays for biomarker discovery
- detection and quantitation of low abundance cell signalling proteins for expression, phosphorylation and protein-protein interactions
- data validation
- data correlation and follow up |
| 11:15 |
Application examples
- broad protein profiling in tissues and cells
- mapping cell signalling pathways by single cell analysis
- phospho-site biomarker discovery for disease diagnosis
- identification of kinase drug targets
- evaluation of animal models of human disease
- uncovering mechanisms of action of drug leads |
| 12:00 |
Review and evaluation of course |
| 12:15 |
Close of course |
Protein Arrays for Biomarker Discovery and Protein Expression Profiling
The course tutor will be Dr. Christer Wingren, Assistant Professor, Lund University, Sweden.
Who should attend?
The course will be suitable for scientists, technicians, and engineers (and PhD students) working within pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies as well as within academic settings. The course is for people that consider working with protein arrays and for those who are currently working with some applications of protein microarrays but want a jumpstart and/or a broader view on the subject. A particular focus will be placed upon protein arrays for biomarker discovery and protein expression profiling.
Learning Objectives
• Master the basic concepts underlying protein microarrays
• Learn how to design protein arrays for, in particular, biomarker discovery and protein expression profiling analysis
• Become familiar with the data analysis and bioinformatic tools
• Learn about recent development in protein arrays applied to biomarker discovery and protein expression profiling
Topics and Course Organisation
| 13:00 |
Welcome and introduction to protein arrays |
| 13:15 |
How to design a protein array technology platform |
| 13:30 |
Design and choice of content
- affinity protein microarrays (recombinant antibodies, p/m antibodies or alternative probes)
- reversed protein microarrays (antigen arrays, cell lysate arrays etc) |
| 14:10 |
Design and fabrication of protein arrays
- design and choice of substrate
- array fabrication
- array format |
| 14:40 |
Sample
- Sample preparation (e.g. serum vs plasma, tissue extraction)
- Sample pre-treatment (e.g. pre-fractionation or not)
- Labelling |
| 15:00 |
Coffee break |
| 15:30 |
Assay set-up
- Detection technology (e.g. label-based vs label-free)
- Sensitivity
- Specificity / Selectivity |
| 16:10 |
Data processing
- Image processing
- Data evaluation / bioinformatics (e.g. quantification, normalization) |
| 16:30 |
Application examples
- Biomarker discovery
- Protein expression profiling |
| 17:00 |
Review and evaluation of course |
| 17:15 |
Close of course |