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Issue 52 | May 2009
(L-R) Tony Brewster, Applied Biosystems
thanks Per Andren for his presentation on
neuropeptide analysis. CSIRO's Michelle
Colgrave who organised
the symposium,
will use her Julius Career Award to work
on peptidomics with
Per Andren in his lab
in Sweden later this month.
A recent symposium on the emerging science of peptidomics accelerates its application to animal neurobiology in CSIRO.
CSIRO's Michelle Colgrave, a 2008 Julius Career Award recipient, last week hosted a landmark Peptidomics Symposium at The University of Queensland, which brought together researchers interested in mass spectrometry of proteins and peptides.
Peptidomics is a rapidly emerging area of research that combines mass spectrometry and bioinformatics to help understand the role that peptides play in health and disease across the biological kingdoms.
Livestock Industries have assembled a team of reproduction biologists, neuroscientists and proteomics specialists to investigate peptides produced in the brains of female cattle, post-partum. After calving, some cows take a long time to return to ovulation, which is impacting on reproduction rates.
This new field of research is underpinned by the knowledge gained from the sequencing and annotation of the Bovine Genome, published in the journal Science late last month.
While the shorter term industry imperative is to improve calving rates, boost productivity and reduce the industry's environmental footprint, the longer term benefit in developing this capability promises applications in the neurobiology of stress, appetite control, and muscle development.
The symposium included presentations from Per Andren, Uppsala University, Sweden; Manfred Raida, Experimental Therapeutics Centre, Singapore; and Anthony Purcell of Bio21 at the University of Melbourne.
Topics included the challenging field of neuropeptide analysis, the very promising new technology of tissue imaging by mass spectrometry, proteomics pipelines for biomarker discovery, and immunology.
The symposium attracted an audience of over 80 scientists from CSIRO, The University of Queensland, Queensland University of Technology, local hospitals and even the Army.
