Multidimensional advancement of neuroproteomics

Abstract

Tim Veenstra is the Director of the Laboratory of Proteomics and Analytical Technologies at the National Cancer Institute at Frederick, MD, USA. Veenstra acquired his PhD in biochemistry from the University of Windsor, Canada, in 1994 under the guidance of Lana Lee. He then moved to the laboratory of Rajiv Kumar at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, USA, where he completed a postdoctoral fellowship in molecular biology. He has been at his current position for 7 years. The focus of his research deals primarily with the discovery of novel biomarkers for diseases such as cancer. To accomplish this goal, his laboratory has developed methods to analyze the proteomes and metabolomes of thin sections obtained from both fresh-frozen and formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissues. His laboratory is also interested in developing and applying methods to more effectively characterize the proteomes and metabolomes of various biofluids for the discovery of both diagnostic and therapeutic biomarkers.Katrin Marcus studied Biochemistry at the Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany. After finishing her diploma thesis, she elaborated her PhD at the Proteinstrukturlabor of Professor HE Meyer in Bochum, Germany, analyzing the phosphoproteome of human thrombin-stimulated platelets. Since August 2002, she has been group leader at the Medizinisches Proteom-Center, supervising several projects such as the ‘Human Brain Proteome Project’ and ‘Clinical Neuroproteomics of Neurodegenerative Diseases’. In August 2003, she was appointed as an Assistant Professor for proteomics at the Medical Faculty of the Ruhr-University. In December 2007, she became full Professor and now leads the Department of Functional Proteomics. Her scientific work is focused on the discovery of biomarkers for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, and the analysis of integral membrane proteins of human hepatocytes that play a pivotal role in all phases of xenobiotics metabolism.