The Center for Proteomics team, December 2019
The Center for Proteomics was established at the University of Rijeka Faculty of Medicine in Croatia in 2006, with the focus on high-throughput monoclonal antibodies (mAb) development for cutting-edge applications, including proteome analysis. It already disposes of several hundred hybridoma cell lines secreting mAbs to a large variety of target proteins.
Although part of the University of Rijeka Faculty of Medicine, a non-profit public higher education institution, the Center is currently funded exclusively from competitive international grants and commercial activities, which makes it a unique research department in Croatian academia.
The Branchetta building from 1908, a former charity institution, accommodates the University of Rijeka Faculty of Medicine since 1955.
How it all started
The underlying idea to establish the Center for Proteomics was first initiated by experts from the World Bank in 2002. The University of Rijeka made major investments for the building construction, which was completed in summer 2003.
The key equipment was purchased through the Jezgra 17 project supported by the Croatian Ministry of Science, Education and Sports. The first goal of the newly established Center was to set up high-throughput mAb production to various cellular and viral proteins.
The Center for Proteomics is located at the campus of the University of Rijeka Faculty of Medicine.
Networking is the key to success
Since its establishment the Center has participated in more than thirty collaborative projects with prestigious research institutes, universities and biotech SMEs from SE Europe, EU and the USA.
These projects are mainly based on the production and characterization of mAbs for research purposes. In many instances the reagents generated at the Center have played a key role in various discoveries and resulted in joint publications in the leading journals.
- Read more about the Center's collaborative projects here.
- Find out more about key publications of the Center's research team here.
Plans for the future
The Center will continue generating mAbs of the highest quality, which have been demanded by industrial and academic users worldwide due to their great significance in the studies of pathogenesis of viral disease. Their potential applications are also in translational research, including the characterization of diagnostic markers and experimental therapies.
Immediate business plans include the establishment of a university spin-off company, which will be the first biotech enterprise in the Rijeka region.
