The main objective of the UCM Proteomics Unit is to promote scientific research and technological development in the Community of Madrid in the area of ​​Proteomics.

The Proteomics Unit offers to the researchers different proteomics services as well as seminars and training courses. The staff of the Proteomics Unit has two fundamental objectives: provide proteomics services to the scientific community and to develop and develop new methodologies that are being developed in this field.

Proteomics is an area of ​​Biology whose objective is the study of proteomes. A proteome is the set of proteins expressed by a genome, a cell or a tissue. The term Proteome was used for the first time in 1995. There were two decisive factors for the development of proteomics:

- On the one hand, the sequencing of genomes on a large scale (the sequence of the genes is known, but not their function).

- And on the other hand, the development of protein separation and analysis techniques (Bidimensional Electrophoresis, Multidimensional Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry).

The sequencing of the human genome has allowed us to know the number of genes that we possess and that this number is not very different from that of other organisms. The complexity of organisms seems to lie in proteins since a gene can give rise to different protein forms. The proteins will undergo different post-translational modifications to perform their function. In addition, proteins will interact with other proteins forming protein complexes.

Proteomics provides a set of very powerful tools for the large-scale study of the function of genes at the protein level. The application of proteomics has an enormous potential in the area of ​​biomedicine for the development of diagnostic methods and prognosis of diseases and for the search of targets that allow the design of new drugs and vaccines.