Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
4.2.2
Structural Genomics Consortium
There are a number of initiatives aimed at solving protein structures [14]. The
SGC is a PPP that, like the IMI, aims to facilitate the development of new
medicine, but in this case it does so by carrying out the basic science of rele-
vance to drug discovery through increasing basic knowledge of protein struc-
tures. It was established in 2003 and operations commenced in mid-2004, and
therefore the SGC is a relatively mature precompetitive effort. The SGC is
based in three centers—the University of Toronto, the Karolinska Institute
and the, University of Oxford—and thus is globally more diverse than the IMI.
It originally was comprised of approximately 200 scientists funded by three
different types of funding sources. Government funds were from Canada
(Genome Canada, Canada Fund for Innovation, Canadian Institutes of Health
Research, Ontario Genomics Institute, Ontario Ministry for Research and
Innovation) and Sweden (Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research,
Vinnova). Charity funding came from the Wellcome Trust and the Knut and
Alice Wallenberg Foundation, and industrial funding was provided by GSK
initially, with Merck and Novartis joining phase II in 2007. It differs from other
precompetitive consortia in this area because industry is a key sponsor of this
effort, which ensures that many of the targets are directly relevant to drug
discovery. For example, the Targeted Proteins Research Programme in Japan
(www.tanpaku.org) is wholly publically funded, although it is studying proteins
of relevance to both academia and industry. The original objective of the SGC
was clearly to promote drug discovery by substantially increasing the number
of medically relevant human protein structures, as well as related reagents and
protocols, available in the public domain. In this regard it was also different
from the Protein Structure Initiative (www.nigms.nih.gov/Initiative/PSI) in the
United States, which had not previously focused on human proteins. In the
SGC the targets are selected by the funders and the fi rst phase of the SGC
aimed to generate 386 protein structures. At the end of phase I, 450 structures
had actually been solved. The target for the second phase of operations (2007-
2011) is 660. By mid-June 2010, nearly 1000 human protein structures (cumula-
tive for phases I and II) had been solved and 2000 human proteins purifi ed,
and therefore the consortium is performing ahead of the original expectations
for phase II. An example of this is shown in Figure 4.3, where the SGC has
been responsible for solving nearly 40% of all kinase structures. One of the
aims of the SGC was to provide the research community with reagents and
tools to maximize the scientifi c impact of the SGC, and as an example of this
hundreds of cDNA clones are distributed to academic and industrial collabo-
rators each year. The SGC also publishes protocols for the expression and
purifi cation of proteins that have been successfully purifi ed in the SGC labo-
ratories and has developed a number of software tools to aid researchers in
structural biology. An additional aim was to publish extensively in high-impact
journals, and the track record of the consortium to date shows that this has
been achieved ( http://www.thesgc.com ).
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