Professor Paik Young-ki Chair of C-HPP Executive Committee

The Chromosome-Centric Human Proteome Project (C-HPP), which is organized and led by Yonsei University, hosted the 9th C-HPP Workshop in Busan on March 26. Currently, Yonsei Biochemistry Professor and Avison Distinguished Professor Paik Young-ki chairs the C-HPP Executive Committee.
Established in 2003, the C-HPP aims to define the full set of proteins encoded in each chromosome through the development of a standardized approach for analyzing the massive proteomic data sets being generated by a number of international research teams. The initial goal of the C-HPP is to identify at least one representative protein encoded by each of the approximately 20,300 human genes. Presently, the C-HPP consortium includes twenty-five international research teams from twenty different nations, including Korea, the U.S., Canada, France, Spain, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and China. Each research team focuses on a single chromosome. In Korea, Professor Paik’s Yonsei group is responsible for Chromosome 13; Chromosome 9 is the focus of Professor Cho Jae-yeol’s team at Seoul National University, while Dr. Jong Shin-yo at the Korea Basic Science Institute leads the research on Chromosome 11. Korea is one of three nations working on three different chromosomes for the C-HPP, along with the U.S. and China.
As Chair of the C-HPP Executive Committee, Professor Paik gave the welcoming address in Busan, detailing C-HPP’s progress during the past two years, while laying out a nine-year research master plan. Professor Paik also spoke of relevant technological advances and identified scholarly publications that have emerged from the C-HPP.
More than sixty researchers from around the world participated in the Busan workshop. The next C-HPP international workshop will be held in Bangkok, Thailand on August 9, and from October 5 to 8, Madrid, Spain will be the site of a C-HPP workshop organized in cooperation with the Human Proteome Organization (HUPO). Coinciding with HUPO’s 13th Annual World Congress, the focus of this gathering will be the C-HPP’s Biofluid Proteome Project.
Currently, Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare is providing research funding to the C-HPP in the amount of 800 million won per year for nine years (from 2013 to 2021). Furthermore, the prestigious Journal of Proteome Research plans to publish a special edition focusing on the progress of C-HPP research.