Cognia is creating ProCat, a knowledge management system that describes protein degradation. ProCat will catalogue all available degradation information on every protein from a variety of organisms. ProCat will be used to analyze pathways and enzymes responsible for controlling physiological protein levels, to explore disease mechanisms, and to search for drug targets. Because aberrant protein degradation has been implicated in many diseases, including cancers, neurodegeneration, and immune disorders, ProCat will have commercial applications in drug discovery from target identification to lead generation and optimization. A knowledge of the mechanisms of proteolytic pathways will also be an invaluable resource to those in the biotechnology/pharmaceutical industry who engineer therapeutic proteins, peptides and peptidomimetics, since inappropriate or unwanted degradation of these drugs is an ongoing concern. The funds from SBIR Phase I will be used to create a functioning relational database populated with sample entries and pathways, and a process for proceeding to Phase II in which ProCat will be developed into a highly structured, sophisticated, and interactive relational database system that enables researchers to learn and describe how, where and when the level of every protein is regulated.
The ProCat database resource and integrated tool set will have commercial applications in basic research and in drug discovery from target identification to lead generation and optimization. ProCat will enable researchers to predict the degradational control of any given protein, identify novel degradation factors, use primary data from protein expression profiling to understand pathogenesis and toxicology, and optimize protein-related drug leads to prevent premature degradation.
