UK protein study has potential to transform personalised medicine

Article by Adam Duckett

A HUGE study that has been launched to find treatments for diseases by measuring how the proteins circulating in our bodies change over time has the potential to transform the application of biochemical engineering and biotechnology.

The UK Biobank Pharma Proteomics Project is being funded by more than a dozen pharmaceuticals firms including AstraZeneca, GSK, Johnson & Johnson, and Pfizer. It will measure up to 5,400 proteins in each of the blood samples given by more than half a million volunteers and compare them with a second set of samples that have been taken in the 15 years since.

Will Olughu, chair of IChemE’s Biochemical Engineering Special Interest Group, said advances in this field – known as human population proteomics – will help scientists understand the intricate interplay between genes, environment, protein translation, and ageing, and will usher in an era of personalised medicine.

“These insights hold transformative potential for biochemical engineering and biotechnology, including metabolic engineering to optimise microorganism pathways for productivity and novel therapeutics, integrating proteomics into in silico models for predictive protein dynamics, and adapting biopharmaceutical manufacturing to cater to the individualised demands of personalised medicine,” Olughu said.

UK Biobank, which is running the project, says it will allow researchers to create and explore a first-of-a-kind database, detailing how changes to an individual’s protein levels influence disease. It says the research field has already demonstrated huge potential for diagnostics and therapeutics.

A pilot project in 2023 involving 54,000 UK Biobank participants produced data that has already led to advances in disease prediction and potential targets for treatments for breast cancer and Parkinson’s.   

Sir Rory Collins, CEO of UK Biobank, said: “For the first time at this scale, researchers will be able to detect the exact causes of diseases by comparing how protein levels change over mid-to-late life in a large group of people.”

UK science minister Lord Vallance said: “The plan to study proteins in participants across the study has the potential to unlock a new era of possibilities.”

Olughu said the research could help chemical engineers develop so-called “medicine-in-a-box” technology in which compact, integrated systems designed to perform complex medical processes –such as diagnostics, drug formulation, and treatment delivery – are housed within a single portable unit that would produce “on demand medicine”.

He said: “As technologies like omics, AI, and synthetic biology evolve, the medicine in a box concept will emerge as a cornerstone of modern healthcare, with biochemical engineers at the forefront of its design and implementation.”

Article by Adam Duckett

Editor, The Chemical Engineer

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