The first scientific meeting of the Swiss Proteomics Society, held in Geneva on 20 – 22 November 2001, was a great success. It is remarkable that the decision to hold the meeting was made only 5 months earlier, when the young Society started to evolve. The vitality of Proteomics in Switzerland is underscored by the strong and rapid response to such a meeting, with 52 abstracts for presentations submitted within a matter of weeks. The abstracts covered areas such as protein function, protein characterisation, protein/peptide separation, mass spectrometry, biomedical applications and bioinformatics. Of the 52 abstracts, 9 were selected for oral presentation and the others were displayed as posters.

The conference included keynote addresses selected to give a panoramic view of proteomic science. The opening lectures, given by Denis Hochstrasser (Geneva University Hospital) and Jan Von Oostrum (Novartis, Basel) provided excellent overviews of Genomics, Proteomics, and respectively Biomedical and Pharmaceutical implications. Ron Appel and Amos Bairoch (Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics) gave a delicious and convincing presentation about how the history of proteomics started in Switzerland by comparing the holes of Swiss cheese with the spots in 2D gels (yes, it was meant to be funny). Less humorous lectures, but no less exciting, showed the latest technical approaches, as well as indications of the future evolution of proteomics: Jean-Luc Veuthey (University of Geneva) discussed protein separation efficiency with capillary electrophoresis while Michael Pawlak talked about the latest techniques developed by Zeptosens (Witterswill, Switzerland) related to protein microarray chips. Functional and sub-cellular proteomics were dealt through different approaches: Jérôme Garin (CEA, Grenoble, France) discussed new experimental strategies to identify transmembrane proteins; Jean-Jacques Diaz (INSERM, Lyon, France) thrown some light into the complexity of nucleolus from the proteomic perspective; Michael Dunn (National Heart and Lung Institute, Harefield, UK) provided new insights into proteomics mechanisms involved in cardiac dysfunctions; and Manfredo Quadroni exposed a new strategy to simplify the study of protein phosphorylation. In a more enlarged point of view of genomics and proteomics, Adriano Aguzzi (Institute of Neuropathology, Zurich) discoursed about the immunobiological mechanisms of prion diseases. To brightly close the whole meeting, Michael Przybylski (University of Konstanz, Germany) gave us hope that, in the near future, the identification of proteins from complex biological mixtures, as well as medium- and low-abundance proteins, will become easy and effective thanks to Fourier Transform-ICR mass spectrometry.

In addition to the scientific presentations, the SPS’01 congress was the occasion to officially create the Swiss Proteomics Society. More than 50 people participated at the Council Meeting held on 21 October and elected the first Executive Committee, who will do their best to achieve the society’s objectives in the next 3 years.

The Organising Committee is extremely grateful to the Conference Sponsors, whose generosity permitted the low registration fee and comfortable venue that was appreciated by all the participants. We also would like to thank all the members of SPS Executive Committee and the staff of FontisMedia for their commitment in all aspects of the conference preparation.

The SPS’01 aimed to bring together Swiss and non-Swiss scientists active in proteomics to share scientifically progressive ideas and the latest technological developments for protein identification and characterisation. These are the main objectives of the Society as well. To keep this project alive and to create additional fruitful interactions in proteomics, we hope to see you all next year in Lausanne (3-5 December 2001) for the Second Scientific Meeting, as well as at other upcoming SPS events.

Long live the Swiss Proteomics Society!

The Organising Committee