GUANGZHOU, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) — News Analysis: Why Are Chinese Scientists Leading an International Big Science Project?

By Xinhua reporter Ma Xiaocheng

Recently, the journal Nature published online the white paper of the Proteomic Navigator of the Human Body (π-HuB) international big science project, initiated by Chinese scientists and co-signed by a team of scientists from 18 countries. It shows that China's research capabilities in this field have entered the world's front rank.

At a symposium on the development of the π-HuB Project held in Guangzhou on the 17th, a number of academicians and experts said that the publication of the white paper in Nature marks a major breakthrough for this project — initiated and led by Chinese scientists — in distilling key scientific questions and forging a global consensus on cooperation, with its principal scientific goals and implementation path now formally recognized by the mainstream international scientific community.

Why is the π-HuB Project important?

More than 20 years ago, the Human Genome Project successfully produced a landmark "panoramic map" of the genome. If life is "conceived" in the genome, it is "lived" in the proteome. The human body holds 37 trillion cells, and it is the dynamic changes of proteins that determine birth, aging, illness and death.

Florian Ulrich, a senior editor at Springer Nature, observed that to truly understand how the human body works, scientists need to study all the proteins in the human body — collectively known as the proteome. Our knowledge of the proteome, however, is still limited: studying genes and similar material cannot fully predict what the proteome contains, and the technologies of the past were not precise enough to measure these proteins.

"Thanks to recent breakthroughs in technology and computational tools, however, scientists can now study proteins with extremely high precision. The π-HuB Project will make use of these advances to create large-scale, detailed datasets covering the proteins of the human body, and to dissect comprehensively the inner mechanisms of human development, aging and disease," Ulrich said.

Why is it being led by Chinese scientists?

He Fuchu, chief scientist of the π-HuB Project and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, explained that Chinese scientists have accumulated long-standing expertise in proteomics research. Through major science and technology programmes such as the "973 Program," they have built up a strong pool of talent, and their technical capabilities stand at the global forefront. The plan, scientific goals and technical roadmap of this international project were all put forward by Chinese researchers.

In Ulrich's view, what sets the π-HuB Project apart is the scale and the collaborative model of its globalization. Launched in China, it simultaneously brings together experts from universities, companies and governments worldwide, with the aim of sharing knowledge and resources.

Robert Moritz, professor at the Institute for Systems Biology in the United States and former president of the Human Proteome Organization, said that many researchers from around the world have already joined this global collaboration. The π-HuB Project has enormous potential to reshape the field of proteomics.

Tony Hunter, professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, said that the π-HuB Project will be a genuinely collaborative endeavor, with expert teams from around the world carrying out this historic work together.

What impact will it have on humanity?

"The significance of this publication lies not only in its acceptance by a top journal such as Nature, but also in the bold and ambitious plan it proposes to deepen our understanding of the molecules of life themselves. The knowledge contributed by exploring how the molecules of life operate will undoubtedly have an immeasurable impact on biology and medicine, and indeed on ecology and biotechnology as a whole," said Ruedi Aebersold, professor at ETH Zurich and a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization.

Ulrich said that by analyzing the data, members of the π-HuB Project hope to gain a deeper understanding of human biology, predict disease risk, improve methods of disease diagnosis, discover new targets for drug development, and design more effective treatment regimens. Ultimately, this research may make it possible to offer every individual smarter, more personalized healthcare.

In Moritz's view, the π-HuB Project will advance disease risk assessment and diagnosis, and its outputs can be applied directly to solving clinical problems. We will be able to discover new drug targets and optimize the appropriate treatment strategies.

He Fuchu said that the development of global biotechnology has now entered a brand-new stage. The π-HuB Project will fully integrate artificial intelligence and big data analytics to achieve the transformation and upgrade from data and information to knowledge and wisdom, pooling efforts to drive the great development and prosperity of the life sciences and of human health.

Source: the π-HuB Project