Potential perils from bioterrorism to bird flu are increasingly pushing proteomics researchers to identify molecules involved in the infection process. Often stymied in characterizing all the proteins of a single organism, investigators must now contend with the complexities inherent in characterizing two intertwined, antagonistic organisms: host and pathogen.
"There's really just not a whole lot of proteomic work published yet" on host-pathogen interactions, says Sandra L. McCutchen-Maloney, biodefense proteomics group leader at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., who recently coauthored a review of the literature.1 Prospects for such research are improving, however, thanks to technical advances and increased funding. If presentations at meetings are any indication, significant papers should emerge within a year, predicts Philip C. Hanna, an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor.
Hanna directs one of seven biodefense proteomics research centers (BPRCs) that the US National ...
