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Pawel Ciborowski, Ph.D. | Howard Gendelman, M.D. |
A team of UNMC researchers led by Pawel Ciborowski, Ph.D., and Howard Gendelman, M.D., are using proteomic technology to discover protein biomarkers that will ultimately lead to better diagnosis and treatment of brain diseases.
“Proteomics is the study of cellular proteins and how those proteins function normally, at the onset of and during disease,” Dr. Ciborowski said.
The discovery of proteins linked to disease has important diagnostic potential, and can be used to predict the onset and progression of diseases, as well as better treatments, Dr. Gendelman said.
The UNMC research team is among a few dozen teams around the world that have incorporated this complex technology into their work, he said.
Their work recently was published in two papers — the February issue of the “Virology and the Journal of Neuroimmunology” and last year in the journal, “Current HIV Research.”
One paper focuses on how macrophage and its biological counterpart in the brain, called microglia, can serve to repair damaged brain tissue after nerve injury and the other looks at the processes by which these same cells turn destructive after becoming infected with the HIV virus and during immune responses and cell activation.
“All together the findings provide new and valuable insights into disease mechanisms not known nor found by more conventional scientific approaches,” Dr. Gendelman said.
The studies also show how HIV spreads throughout the body through the macrophages and how it spreads from person to person, he said.
“All of the research done in these studies would not be possible without the use of proteomic technology,” Dr. Ciborowski said. “Through proteomics we are able to look at thousands of proteins at the same time in a simplified process.”
The ultimate goal in using proteomics, Dr. Gendelman said, is to obtain the most comprehensive view of cellular proteins, every characteristic, every action and reaction, so the minute changes of disease can be unraveled.
UNMC is one of just a few institutions that is actively using proteomic technology in the setting of neurological disease.
The field has been coined “neuroproteomics.”
“There is no question that our scientists are closer than ever to being able to make early diagnosis for a variety of neurodegenerative disease, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, with the help of this new technology,” Dr. Gendelman said. “If this can be realized we will be in position to use parallel therapeutic modalities also being developed here to obtain lasting answers and better treatments for these dreadful diseases.”
Dr. Gendelman credits the teamwork of the researchers and leadership of Dr. Ciborowski for achieving such important goals.
“All of this would not have been possible if it had not been for the teamwork displayed on a daily basis in our research labs,” he said.