Focus on

June 2006

UBIQUITIN RESEARCH GAINS SUBSTANTIAL EC SUPPORT

The RUBICON Network of Excellence will work towards a better understanding of Ubiquitin-related diseases and the development of novel drugs. The FIRC Institute of Molecular Oncology Foundation is among the founder members of the new Network.

The European Commission has awarded a 12 Million Euro grant to foster the collaboration of European experts in the field of Ubiquitin research. A consortium of 15 leading research laboratories and five small and medium enterprises in the field are the founding members of a "Network of Excellence" on the "ole of Ubiquitin and Ubiquitin-like Modifiers in Cellular Regulation" - RUBICON. Prof. Maria Masucci, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, will coordinate the Network.
RUBICON plans to operate in various fields of research on Ubiquitin and Ubiquitin-like molecules to coordinate research, training activities, the joint use of state-of-the-art infrastructures, and the transfer of knowledge of basic cellular processes to drug discovery in research-industry collaborations. IFOM is one of the 15 founding members.

"The aim of RUBICON - explains Marco Foiani, co-Scientific Director of IFOM - is to identify the molecules that are involved in the ubiquitin network, which we already known is exquisitely regulated. A second objective will be to understand how this network is activated; the analysis of gene expression profiles to determine the expression of specific protein products will be critical for this task. The results we obtain will form the basis for the identification of new therapeutic targets and allow the development of new classes of drugs".

Further information

» IFOM Press release - [.pdf, 250 Kb]
» Rubicon web site

An overview over the multiple functions of Ubiquitin-tagging of proteins in the cell. The addition of one or more Ubiquitin "tags" (red) to target proteins (yellow) labels the Ubiquitin-modified proteins for either (A) destruction to small peptides in the proteasome, the cell's degradation machinery, (B) transfer into