UK-Canada consortium to explore human proteins

A $95-million UK-Canada partnership billed as the largest international research project ever funded in Canada will spend the next three years determining the three-dimensional structure of more than 350 human proteins. The Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC) is led by Dr Aled Edwards, a leading expert in proteomics and structural genomics research with the Bant-ing and Best Department of Medical Research at the Univ of Toronto. The SGC builds on the massive resource developed by the Human Genome Project to explore the structure and function of proteins and their role in health and disease. The information will be placed in a public database for use by researchers around the world. Nearly half of the project’s funding comes from the UK’s Welcome Trust ($44.7 million), which initiated the project. Genome Canada and the Ontario R&D Challenge Fund are contributing $15 million each, while the Ontario Innovation Trust is investing $7.2 million and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research is providing $6 million. The consortium’s lone private sector partner — GlaxoSmithKline R&D — is contributing $7.5 million. Genome Canada will flow through the Ontario Genomics Institute....