A team of scientists from the Massachusetts biomedical community today launched a new research institute to expand protein science and enhance drug discovery. Backed by a unique and collaborative combination of public investment and academic philanthropy, The Institute for Protein Innovation (IPI) brings together leaders in academic research, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, and biomedical investing to seek new therapies for currently intractable diseases.
The IPI has a threefold mission: develop and share well-validated monoclonal antibodies targeting every extracellular protein in humans; train scientists from academic and industry labs; and create shared core facilities in protein expression, antibody discovery and biophysical analysis. The IPI's resources will also be available to non-affiliated industry and academic investigators. Together with its partners, the IPI will enable worldwide advances in research and drug development, driven by the availability of its open-source antibody library.
"Over the past 20 years, proteins have transformed drug discovery and biomedical research, serving as the targets of almost all drugs and in many cases as therapeutic drugs themselves," Timothy A. Springer, Ph.D., Latham Family Professor at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital and IPI's Founder said. "Despite their pivotal importance in research and medicine, proteins lag behind DNA and RNA in institutional research support and funding. The IPI fills this gap, providing intellectual capital from academia to empower protein research and pioneer new therapeutics that improve human health."
Central to the IPI mission is the creation of a library of high quality synthetic antibodies, which can be used as tools to enable drug discovery research, and may themselves become therapies for currently intractable diseases.
An important component in all IPI operations is a commitment to transparency. Antibodies that arise from the IPI's work will be validated by the international biomedical community and made widely available for analysis and research. Information related to DNA sequence, protein expression, and functional validation of these reagents will be curated in a web portal accessible to all. By democratizing these data and reagents, and making their source code available for further improvement, the IPI will accelerate the development of new therapeutics and complement the efforts of existing large-scale scientific initiatives such as the Human Cell Atlas.