Affinity binders are among the most powerful analytical tools for life sciences research, diagnostics and increasingly therapeutics for cancer and autoimmune disease. Affinity proteomics seeks to use them to analyse proteomes using collections of specific binding reagents. While the most familiar affinity reagents are the classical antibodies and their fragments, there are also alternative engineered forms of novel protein scaffolds and nucleic acid aptamers with similar diversity and binding properties. Binder collections must be accompanied by development of high-throughput assay systems and look towards applications in functional analysis, diagnostics and therapeutics. Results achieved through affinity proteomics technologies will have a strong impact on the biomedical, pharmaceutical and biotech industries.


Meeting Programmes

The March 2009 Meeting in Alpbach, Austria, served the dual purpose of

(i) Annual ProteomeBinders consortium and reporting meeting (Programme) and

(ii) Open ESF / ProteomeBinders Affinity Proteomics Workshop (Programme Overview and Full Meeting Booklet)

This meeting was the 4th in a series of workshops previously held in Cambridge (2004), Uppsala (2005) and Alpbach (2007) and is organised by the ProteomeBinders consortium with additional support from the ESF Programme on Frontiers in Functional Genomics. The current Affinity Proteomics Workshop reviewed methods for generation and quality control for binding reagents and applications in high-throughput proteomics.