Cancer research - towards personalized medicine

The recent pandemic notwithstanding, cancer is still a major global threat which touches all of our lives either directly or indirectly. The potential to provide precise treatments through the focus of personalised medicine offers hope for the future. New advances across the analytical range from chromatography, mass spectrometry to intelligent software systems are changing the way analyses are being performed and allowing for continuing progress.

Presentations:

Identification of Biomarkers for Early Diagnosis of Ovarian Cancer through Microvesicle Proteomic Profiling of Liquid Biopsies

• Tami Geiger, Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

MultiOmics approach reveals insights into malignant melanoma development and progression

• Jeovanis Gil Valdés, Clinical Chemistry, Malmö, Department of Translational Medicine, Lund University, Sweden

Higher levels of the BRAF mutated protein is associated with A more aggressive malignant melanoma tumor progression

• Indira Pla Parada, Clinical Protein Science & Imaging, Biomedical Centre, Department of Biomedical, Engineering, Lund University, Sweden

Learning points:

• Latest advances in clinical proteomics
• Latest advances in cancer research
• Optimising strategies to maximise research performance with confidence

Who should attend:

• Researchers in proteomics labs
• Researchers in clinical labs
• Laboratory directors, managers and technicians interested in developments in personalized medicine

Tami Geiger (Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel)

Jeovanis Gil Valdés (Clinical Chemistry, Malmö, Department of Translational Medicine, Lund University, Sweden)

Graduated in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Havana, and Proteomics & Bioinformatics at the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Cuba in 2003. Obtained the PhD degree in Biomedical Sciences at the National University of Mexico (UNAM) in 2017 by the contribution to the proteomic study of lysine acetylation and to the role of the deacetylase SIRT1 in human cells. From 2018 to 2021 conducted postdoctoral studies in the group Clinical Protein Science & Imaging, Lund University under the supervision of Prof. György Marko-Varga, focusing on the molecular profiling of large cohorts of melanomas through multiomic analysis. In 2021 got a position as Researcher at the Department of Translational Medicine, Lund University. Expertise in mass spectrometry-based proteomics and PTMs analysis (Phosphorylation & Lysine acetylation), data analysis and bioinformatics from proteogenomics and metabolomics. In melanoma has contributed to link molecular profiles including mutated driver genes with clinical and histopathological features, uncovering vulnerabilities of the most aggressive melanomas and validating the targets and drugs in preclinical models. Played a driving role in the recently published MM500 project, consisting in mapping the proteome and PTMs on +500 tumor samples resulting in the first blueprint of the Human Melanoma Proteome Atlas, based on 16 000 proteins, 52 000 phosphorylation and 4 400 acetylation sites.

Indira Pla Parada (Clinical Protein Science & Imaging, Biomedical Centre, Department of Biomedical, Engineering, Lund University, Sweden)

Indira is PhD student at the Department of Translational Medicine from Lund University. She has a background in bioinformatics and biotechnology and one of her current research project is focused on building different data analysis workflows to characterize the protein profile dynamics of B-raf mutated metastatic melanoma tissue.