Research of human proteome will greatly increase the number of new medicines in the next two decades, said John Bergeron, president of the Human Proteome Organization (HUPO), here Monday.

Bergeron said the Human Proteome Project, launched by the HUPO in 2001, will discover 5,000 functional proteins in 20 years, providing opportunities to find cures for deadly diseases such as cancer.

Following the Human Genome Project, which finished in the late 1990s, the proteome project is another global bio-scientific collaboration. Proteins are the basic components of human organs. Scientists hold that if they can decode the secret of human proteins, they will be able to unveil the rules of human life and the pathology of many diseases. The 2,000 medicines so far developed by human beings are based on 500 proteins.

Samir Hanash, a professor from the University of Michigan in the United States, said the whole scientific world used to think that the sources of disease would be found if the human gene sequences were mapped out. "But we were wrong," he said.

He acknowledged said scientists only managed to understand 10 percent of the total function of human genes and the remaining 90 percent remained unknown. "What we need to do now is to understand them on the protein level," said Hanash, the previous HUPO president.

Since the project will discover many new disease "targets," he said, international pharmaceutical companies have been keen to invest in it. In 2003, the United States approved 23 new medicines, the research and development of which cost US pharmaceutical companies 33 billion US dollars.

The Human Proteome Project has six subsidiary projects: Human Liver Proteome Project, Human Plasma Proteome Project, Human Brain Proteome Project, Human Antibody Initiative, Human Proteomics Standards Initiative and HUPO Mouse and Rat Proteome Project.

Hanash said the research data of the Human Proteome Project was not private property and would be open to the world.

Source: Xinhua