Proteomics: the latest thing

Proteomics is the study of proteins—the ones in your body. Collectively they’re called your “proteome” (similar to genome). You have 20,000 or so of these. Proteins are constructed inside cells and are in constant flux, unlike genes, which are static. That is, proteins can appear and disappear or shift in concentration in response to what’s going on in your body or the environment. For this reason, they can indicate incipient diseases well before any symptoms appear and can, if detected, serve as a diagnostic mechanism.

Some diseases, such as H.I.V. and prostate cancer (the PSA test) have long been diagnosed by detecting a single protein. Pregnancy is also detectable by a single protein. In this case, it’s a do-it-yourself pee stick that measures a hormonal protein produced by the placenta. But the newer research is focusing on diseases with protein “fingerprints” that can involve thousands of proteins, as is the case with diabetes. Such diagnostic ability has only recently become possible, thanks to powerful and sophisticated computers.

Using enormous banks of computers and thousands of blood samples associated with thousands of health records, a couple of companies are developing algorithms that are beginning to identify some of these disease-related protein fingerprints, such as for lung and pancreatic cancer and heart disease. The fingerprints convey your odds of getting sick, the current state of your disease, and its trajectory. 

The journalist, whose article inspired this blog post, and whose super-fit 71-year-old mother had died suddenly of a heart attack, had his protein fingerprint analyzed. The results told him that he had an 11 percent chance of having a heart attack within five years. He immediately started taking cholesterol-lowering drugs and avoiding red meat. After one year, his blood was tested again. He did not drop a single percentage point. (As an anti-cholesterol-lowering drug person, I love this result.)

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