Market opportunity in computational proteomics

The current exuberance on the potential of proteomics as a means to deploy the wealth of the human genome is expected to last into the coming years. Unlike the genome, a finite entity with a fixed number of base pairs of the genetic material, the proteome is "plastic", changing throughout growth and development and environmental stresses, as well as in pathological situations. Our proteomes change over time, and therefore there is no one proteome; the proteome is for practical purposes an infinite entity. It is therefore crucial to build systems that are capable of manipulating the information content that is the proteome, thence the need for computational proteomics as a discipline. In this Market View article, we present the industry landscape that is emerging in the computational proteomics space. This space is still in its infancy and for the most part undefined; therefore we seek to present the market opportunity in informatics in the drug discovery space and then extend that to an examination of industry trends in proteomics. Thus, the gestalt is a set of predictions as to the evolution of the landscape in computational proteomics over the coming years.