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MOLECULAR BIOTECHNOLOGY Volume 34, 2006

EDITORIAL

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Molecular Biotechnology © 2006 Humana Press Inc. All rights of any nature whatsoever reserved. ISSN: 1073–6085/Online ISSN: 1559–0305/2006/34:2/099–100/$30.00

*Author to whom all correspondence and reprint requests should be addressed. 1Protein Science Group,Department of Biosciences,Universityof Kent,Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NJ, UK; E-mail: c.m.smales@kent.ac.uk. 2Flamel Technologies, 33 Avenue du Dr Georges Lévy, 69693Vénissieux, France.

Proceedings from the 7th PEACe Conference on Protein Expressionin Animal Cells, September 18–22, 2005, Crete, Greece

Mark Smales*,1 and Kenneth Lundstrom2

Despite the knowledge of the delay caused bymanuscript submission, reviewing and publish-ing the Board of the Protein Expression Interna-tional Society (PEIS) agreed to publish a specialissue of the Proceedings of 7th Protein Expres-sion in Animal Cells (PEACe) Conference. Wewere delighted of the enthusiasm expressed byMolecular Biotechnology to publish a special issuebased on presentations from the Crete conference.

Our conference series has reached its 7th meet-ing and although the meeting spirit and philoso-phy has been unchanged since the inauguralconference on “Baculovirus and RecombinantProtein Processes” in Interlaken, Switzerland1992, owing to major developments in the fieldover the proceeding years new topics have sur-faced and been introduced. Systems Biology,Proteomics, Genomics, and RNA interference areareas that did not even exist back in the early1990s. On-the-other-hand, Gene Delivery, CellEngineering, and Protein Production Strategiesare still topics of major interest and importancefor the pharmaceutical and biotechnology indus-try today. Each conference organized in thisseries has aimed at obtaining the followinggoals: (1) To be a program of the highest qualitywith world-class invited speakers. (2) Provide theopportunity to inspire scientific discussions insmall-groups and one-to-one levels in a stimulat-ing and welcoming setting. (3) Keep the costs ac-ceptably low to attract delegates from academiaand allow students to attend at special reducedrates. (4) Give the opportunity to present ones

own results through oral communications andposters. To achieve these goals, the PEACe con-ferences have been forced to acquire a substantialbudget to cover the travel and accommodationexpenses for invited speakers and to keep theregistration fees for delegates at a reasonablelevel. Moreover, the organizing committee hasprovided its services free of charge.

This issue in Molecular Biotechnology has sev-eral articles describing different aspects of SystemsBiology and Proteomics and Genomics. In thiscontext, growth inhibition and signalling controlrelated to oncogenesis are described in two articlesby Jorrit Hornberg and co-workers. A mathemati-cal approach on the analysis of molecular reactionnetworks is presented by Peter Dittrich and hiscolleagues. Structural genomics aspects on mem-brane proteins are described by Kenneth Lundstrom.Moreover, proteomics approaches have been inves-tigated by Peter Morin Nissom’s and Mark Smales’teams in attempts to improve recombinant proteinproduction in mammalian cells.

Gene Delivery, one of the central themes of theconference, is well represented in the form ofoptimization of transduction of mammaliancells (by Reingard Grabherr and co-workers), areview on SV40-derived expression vectors (byDavid Strayer and co-workers) and application ofcanine adenovirus vectors for long-term expressionand clinical gene therapy (by Matthieu Perreau andEric Kremer). Another gene therapy applicationdeals with growth hormone secretion from retro-virally transduced keratinocytes (by Paolo Bartolini

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and co-workers). Recombinant protein expressionfrom the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtiiis reviewed by Griesbeck and colleagues. Tran-sient transfection methods in mammalian cells aredescribed by Stephan Kalwy and co-workers andthe scale-up for fast recombinant protein produc-tion by Yves Durocher and co-workers.

Various aspects including the engineering of ahuman hybrid cell line HKB11 for expression ofrecombinant human coagulation factor VIII (byBaisong Mei and co-workers) are presented in thecontext of Cell Engineering. Martin Schroeder’sreview deals with the unfolded protein responseand its effect on protein folding, which obvi-ously plays an important role on the quality ofthe expressed recombinant proteins. Moreover,the regulation of gene expression in mouse embry-onic cells through RNA interference is describedby Karin Lykke-Andersen. The development oftransfection and high-producer Chinese hamsterovary (CHO) cell lines (by Celina de la Cruz

Edmonds and co-workers) and serum-free large-scale transfection of CHO cells in WAVE biore-actors (by Raj Haldankar and co-workers) aredescribed under Integrated Protein ProductionStrategies. Moreover, the expression of the humaninsulin-like growth factor analogue LONG™R3IGF-1 in serum-free cultures of HEK293 cellsis described by Danny Voorhamme and CatherineYandell.

In order to continue the tradition of organiz-ing high quality conferences in the area of pro-tein expression, the Board of PEIS has nowdecided to hold the 8th PEACe Conference inAngra des Reis (near Rio de Janeiro) in Brazil,September 16–20, 2007. The aim is to continuerunning this series of meetings according to ourestablished format, but also to raise the awarenessand promote the activities in biotechnology inSouth America. You are all cordially invited tojoin us next year in Brazil.

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