Research Projects

IMAGE (Image Meta-Analysis Generation and Exploitation)

What if you could have at your fingertips all the published 2D-gel electrophoresys data relevant to your research?

• You could check the status of your proteins of interest in different pathophysiological conditions
• You could directly compare your gels with gels obtained in similar conditions by others
• You could examine the status of a protein in different tissues
• You could compare many gels, pertinent to different conditions, to highlight potential biomarkers for your condition of interest before going to the lab
• You could examine a larger population of patients, by including in your study gels produced by others
• You could check wether the identity of a spot of interest is known, by aligning your gel with gels already assigned by others

These example applications are within the scope of BioDiscovery, a software under development at BioDigitalvalley, which will render you able to make use of relevant 2Dgel data for guiding your proteomic research toward more productive and cost-effective approaches.

ParIS (Parkinson Informative System)

The two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE) pattern of proteins is thought to be specifically related to the physiological or pathological condition at the moment of sample preparation. On this ground, most proteomic studies move to identify specific hallmarks for a number of different conditions. However, the information arising from these investigations is often incomplete due to inherent limitations of the technique, to extensive protein post-translational modifications and sometimes to the paucity of available samples.

On the other side, the meta-analysis of proteomic data can provide valuable information pertinent to various biological processes that otherwise remains hidden.

In a two year research effort, we intend to apply this approach to ascertain the validity of known Parkinson's Disease biomarkers, while keeping an eye on possible new biomarkers obtained studying an homogeneous population of 50 patients. Our core technology ProteinQuest™ will be used for relevant 2D gel, while blood samples will be collected from patients and controls; aim of the project will be the crossing of experimental with the meta-analysis of the scientific literature.

The project will be run in collaboration with the Aosta Regional Hospital and the University of Insubria.