Atlantic Node Works in Progress Meeting

The next Works in Progress meeting will be held this Thursday, June 23 in the Seminar Room, 2nd Floor, New Academic Building, University of  King's College. Coffee and sweets at 7 pm, the talk begins at 7:30.  All are welcome.
"'Omics' and Wilson disease (a genetic liver disease) - can they mix?"  by Eve Roberts, Department of Philosophy, Dalhousie University.
Abstract: Wilson disease is a genetic disorder of hepatic copper disposition. It is found worldwide but is quite rare, affecting approximately 30 per million population. First described in 1912, it causes cirrhosis of the liver and various patterns of degenerative neurological disease. By the 1950s it was known that the mechanism of disease had something to do with how copper is handled in the liver.  In 1993 identifying the gene which is mutated in Wilson disease opened important new dimensions to studying the cell physiology of copper.  Since then various systems biology strategies have been used. In order  to study the network of proteins involved in handling copper inside  liver cells, we developed a specialized type of proteomics, which we  call "metalloproteomics". Metalloproteomics is a systems approach  which seeks to identify large sets of proteins associated with metals  and analyze their regulation, modification, interaction, structural  assembly, and function as well as their involvement in physiological  processes (including development) and in disease states. In this  seminar, I will review our work, mainly on the copper-metalloproteome,  and the "omics" work of other researchers in the field of copper  physiology. All these approaches are unstructured in the sense that  they are not hypothesis-driven. This kind of scientific research poses  challenges to the traditional view that scientific research requires a  hypothesis in order to be an appropriate and well-organized research  effort. This is an important emerging issue in philosophy of biology.