Media Advisory

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Sept. 12, 2002

Media Liaison Group
at (301) 975-2762 or
media@nist.gov

MA 2002-03

Workshop to Explore Use of Mitochondrial Proteins for a
Systems Biology Approach to Detection and Diagnosis of Diseases

Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2002, and Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2002
8:30 a.m. - 6 p.m. on Tuesday and 8:30 a.m. - 1 p.m. on Wednesday (both Eastern Time)

Employee Lounge in Bldg. 101 (Administration Bldg.)
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, Md.
(Take I-270 North to Exit 10, enter NIST at the first traffic light)

The Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will host a two-day workshop, "Systems Biology Approaches to Health Care: Mitochondrial Proteomics," on Sept. 17-18, 2002, at which participants will assess how human mitochondria—tiny organelles within cells that convert nutrients into energy—and their proteins can be developed as a tangible model system of the human proteome (all of the gene products made by an organism) to improve the detection and diagnosis of complex human diseases.

The workshop is sponsored by NIST; the Division of Cancer Biology at the National Cancer Institute; the Laboratory of Cardiac Energetics at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute; BD Biosciences; the Mitochondria Research Society; and the Mitochondria Interest Group.

Workshop speakers from government, academia and industry will address topics such as mapping the mitochondrial protein production, issues and challenges of proteomics in clinical practice, and combining imaging and proteomics. For a complete schedule, visit the workshop Web site at www.cstl.nist.gov/biotech/mito/mitoproteomics.html.

Additionally, workshop participants will identify ways in which NIST could contribute to this research, such as the development of standards for successful applications of proteomics techniques by the clinical diagnostics industry. Relevant NIST contributions to date include:

development of a Standard Reference Material to ensure accuracy in sequencing of mitochondrial DNA;
development of MitoAnalyzer, a software program that allows the user to determine how a polymorphism (a difference in a DNA sequence among individuals) affects the resulting protein in human mitochondrial DNA (www.cstl.nist.gov/biotech/strbase/mitoanalyzer.html); and
co-management of the Protein Data Bank, the single worldwide repository for the processing and distribution of three-dimensional protein structures (http://nist.rcsb.org/pdb/).

Sign-Up: For security reasons, all media planning to attend the workshop must register by 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Monday, Sept. 16, 2002, with the media contact listed at the beginning of this advisory. Only registered media will be allowed on site after showing proper credentials (a news media badge with photo or a photo ID with a business card).  

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date created: 9/12/02
contact: inquiries@nist.gov