The human appetite for war and killing is still so strong with no end in sight. Countries are always ready to avenge an attack, fight an enemy, march on another country. Government budgets for military research are enormous; the US defense budget is almost equal to all other countries combined.

There are some nasty people out there, especially religious extremists who use their god as their shield to kill. Or dictators hiding behind religion to push down their citizens. Except for our weapons, where we have really excelled, when it comes to people killing people, the human race has not progressed much from where it was thousands of years ago.

But when we look at what the real terrorists are doing to everyone on the planet, we show little of the same flaming passion to avenge our sick, our injured, our dead. Deaths from cardiovascular disease dwarf the world’s war dead. Cancer is a random genocide. Tuberculosis a well armed military destroying everything in its path.

The real terrorists? They are attacking our cells everyday, inserting explosive viral packages for future destruction and sheer terror. They force people to have diagnostic tests whose results could be devastating. They are mutated DNA coding for a protein that inhibits productivity, increases depression and wrecks lives. And these terrorists effect millions of lives every day.

The statistics are startling, aren’t they? It’s clear Americans — indeed the world — are attacked by disease so often that it should arguably be the biggest topic for electoral politics. But it isn’t. In fact, it is rarely mentioned. Global warming gets more airtime.

So where is the outrage? Why aren’t Democrats and Republicans duking it out over how to conquer cancer, attack AIDS, terminate tuberculosis and destroy diabetes? Where is the debate on educating more kids to encourage them to enter scientific fields to bolster our national intellectual property and hence, innovations and prosperity? Regardless of what one may think of the efficacy of government scientific research institutions such as the NIH, why aren’t we increasing its funding to understand the fundamental causes of disease?

The real terror isn’t a women with a burka in a crowded farmer’s market, or a man with a turban sitting next to you on a plane, but a woman feeling a lump on her breast for the first time, or a man being told by his doctor about a high PSA test, or a chicken farmer in Thailand feeling sick. The terror alert should be red for a pregnant woman with no way to afford pre-natal care, or an aging veteran without medical coverage.

So why aren’t more people demonstrating in the streets against these invaders; these harbingers of death? Why haven’t we lobbied for a surge for cancer? A national disease-defense program? A department of health security?

It’s because we are not wired that way, I believe. There are war heroes, but no scientific heroes. Our history books teach how the battle of Gettysburg was fought, but little on the battle on cancer. We have parades for victorious troops, but not victorious mass spectroscopists. That’s just a guess.

Lest you think I am some crazy guy who hates war and wants every disease on the planet cured… wait! I am. Yep.

So fight on science! Maybe one day the brain will rule the brawn as the main way to delegate resources… until then, write a grant and hope for the best.

Close your eyes and see it in your mind. You’re at the corner of Fifth and Park Avenues in New York City… it’s the summer and it just rained. You have to meet someone for dinner so you call to get directions and exchange information. On the way out of the office you smoke a joint, buy flowers from a vendor, bump into someone who quietly pick-pockets your wallet while you give some money to a street artist… and you continue to watch the people around you. Some of them are more attractive then others, you think to yourself, and then one comes along and you hug tightly… you can feel the chemistry.

Now, think about a cell… go deep inside and make yourself tiny. Really tiny. Can you see the different macromolecules floating around, some hurrying to get somewhere… some hanging with the wrong crowd, free radicals, roaming proteases, foreign small molecules, substrates. And then a few bump into each other and hang out for a while, while others avoid each other with a vengeance. You watch as one decent sized multivalent protein leans against the cell membrane and rings the doorbell. A giant vacuole pops open and with its lipid lips swallows it whole. Shock is in the air. Most of the proteins seem to know where they’re going, but some just hang around like they’re waiting for a bus.

They are born, one amino acid at a time. They fold, unfold, perform a function and then die… chopped up by another protein like a mortician preparing a body.

And life goes on.

That’s what we’re up against in studying proteins and the world around them… some order, a lot of chaos, and the criminal element always there to screw things up.

So when we think about the huge efforts being made by researchers to unravel this complex matrix and attempt to solve problems, it’s a wonder we are making any progress at all. We tend to view proteins and DNA, membranes and the cell as discrete objects doing their thing when in reality it’s one giant blob —heck even our system biology approach is overly simplistic. But at this point, in these early days (trust me, we are early!) of proteomics we have no choice. We have to take it one step at a time and attempt, with good technologies and well thought through experiments, to make some sense of it.

If we look at just one criminal (or is he more aptly named a terrorist?) running rampant —cancer— we need a different approach. A Manhattan project. One company, one institution can’t cut it. This isn’t about competition, it’s about something much more important. I think we forget that sometimes.

Proteins, like people running around doing their thing, want to live their lives free of stress. They don’t want to worry about bad guys lurching around the next corner. But who will provide this security; this peaceful existence? The life sciences community. Scientific researchers are security forces who provide protection. They are the protein police.

So let’s circle our wagons, together, worldwide, and agree on the mission. It’s fighting the real terrorists… disease.

Imagine if you could immobilize membrane proteins in their native state to a microfluidic surface?

That’s what Nanoxis’ microfluidic LPI™ FlowCell can do. This is one of those products that few proteomic researchers know about, but once publications appear - and they are coming - this company’s products will be in demand.

So why focus a company and its technology on membrane proteins? About 70% of all major drugs sold today target membrane proteins linked to diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and cancer. However, a small fraction of all membrane proteins have yet to be well characterized - take GPCRs for example - only 10% have been identified. Any progress in our ability to work with membrane proteins is therefore likely to, eventually, help people with diseases receive better treatment. It is predicted that fully two thirds of all anticipated new drugs will need to act on membrane proteins; that’s a very powerful story for building a company and new technology.

Nanoxis (www.nanoxis.com), founded in 2002, is a small company located in the city of Gothenburg… a region with a population of about one million people and known for some of the best restaurants in Europe. The folks from Nanoxis have exhibited at several symposiums and trade shows in the US and all over the globe. Look for them at this year’s Protein Society meeting in San Diego (booth 512) and ask for Tynde Sandor, Nanoxis’ worldwide sales manager.

If you are working on membrane proteins and would like more information on Nanoxis’ and others’ technologies drop me a note… I’d love to cross paths.

So what about proteins? Proteomics. Protein chemistry. Molecular proteomics. Protein shakes. There’s some great stuff happening that will change the world in a few years… and I’ll give you an advanced look at who’s doing it, where it’s coming from and the direction it’s headed.

So we’ll be drilling deep… from the anxiety of going bottoms-up or top-down… to the thrill of hovering at the 30,000 feet level talking ethics. That’s about the extent of my plan.

I’m a direct talk guy… I’ll tell you the way I see it. I look forward to your comments and if I ever offend, it is never intended.

In the next post I’ll talk about ASMS and my impressions on what I saw, and I’ll also tell you a bit more about me and my background.

Enjoy the weekend!

PS… that beautiful bay in the picture above is the view I had when I created CoolProteomics.

Proteomics is Cool!! Isn’t it?