November 1, 2011
Dr. Christopher Overall was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award for outstanding contributions to the field of proteolysis from the International Proteolysis Society. He was recognized for inventing and developing the field of degradomics, which brings proteomics to the study of proteases with the developing of new approaches, some of which are noted in the bibliography below.
Christopher Overall (L) is seen with James Powers, another Life Time Achievement awardee.
The award was presented on October 20, 2011 in San Diego, California during the 7th General Meeting of the International Proteolysis Society. General meetings are held every two years.
Degradomics is a highly specialized field of biochemistry that uses global approaches to study the makeup of all proteins in a tissue. In one recent study Overall takes the degradomic techniques devised in his lab for evaluating cell systems and uses them to study, in cancer, how proteases (enzymes that digest proteins into smaller pieces) work and which proteins are acted upon by the proteases. Such information could help design drugs to provide new cancer treatments.
Other work of Overall’s in the field of proteolysis attempts to decipher the actions of proteases that make tumours more cancerous and to investigate ways in which inflammation destroys tissues and cause disease. Other degradomics research, in his eponymous lab, has led to discoveries such as how HIV infection can lead to dementia. Overall’s team has also developed the CLIP-CHIP®, a DNA microarray chip that has every protease, inhibitor and gene variants on the chip for both mouse and man.
Already a highly distinguished scientist, he is the Canada Research Chair in Metalloproteinase Proteomics and Systems Biology, Overall teaches in the Department of Oral Biological & Medical Sciences in the Faculty of Dentistry. He is a member of the Canadian Proteomics Network, The Canadian Arthritis Network of Centres of Excellence, the UBC Centre for Blood Research, and the UBC Prostrate Centre.
Dr. Overall will present at two symposia during the upcoming American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting from February 16 to 20, 2012, in Vancouver, BC. He is one of 40 UBC researchers invited to speak during the AAAS Annual Meeting, one of the most widely recognized global science events. Visit the announcement page here.
Additional Information about Dr. Christopher Overall
- Visit The Overall Lab website here.
- Funding announcement: CIHR awards over $1.76M to UBC Dentistry researchers
- Funding announcement: Canadian Cancer Society awards UBC Dentistry faculty over $800k in research grants
- Read the Impressions magazine article about Christopher Overall’s research, Dentistry Research: The Overall Approach
Bibliography detailing new approaches in degradomics
- Lange, P and Overall, C.M. 2011. TopFIND, a Knowledgebase Linking Protein Termini with Function. Nature Methods 8, 703-704.
- Kleifeld, O., Doucet, A., Prudova, A., auf dem Keller, U., Gioia, M., Kizhakkedathu, J., and Overall, C.M. 2011. System-Wide Proteomic Identification of Protease Cleavage Products by Terminal Amine Isotopic Labeling of Substrates. Nature Protocols 6, 1578-1611.
- Schilling, O., Huesgen, P.F., Barré, O., auf dem Keller, U., and Overall, C.M. 2011. Characterization of the Prime and Non-Prime Active Site Specificities of Proteases by Proteome-derived Peptide Libraries and Tandem Mass Spectrometry. Nature Protocols 6, 111-120.
- Schilling, O., Barré, O., Huesgen, P.F., and Overall, C.M. 2010. Proteome-wide Analysis of Protein Carboxy Termini: C Terminomics. Nature Methods 7, 508-511. Featured in C&EN (Chemical and Engineering News).
- Schilling, O. and Overall, C.M. 2008. Proteome-derived Database Searchable Peptide Libraries for Identifying Protease Cleavage Sites. Nature Biotechnology 26, 685-694.
- Kleifeld, O., Doucet, A., auf dem Keller, U., Prudova, A., Schilling, O., Kainthan, R.K., Starr, A., Foster, L.J., Kizhakkedathu, J.N., Overall, C.M. 2010. Isotopic labeling of Terminal Amines in Complex Samples Identifies Protein N-termini and Protease Cleavage Products. Nature Biotechnology 28, 281-288.
- Schilling, O. and Overall, C.M. 2008. Protease Subsite Profiling with Proteome-derived Peptide Libraries (PICS). Nature Protocols Exchange