A Sydney proteome story

This is the story of the experience of a multidisciplinary group at Macquarie University in Sydney as we participated in, and impacted upon, major currents that washed through protein science as the field of Proteomics emerged. The large scale analysis of proteins became possible. This is not a history of the field. Instead we have tried to encapsulate the stimulating personal ride we had transiting from conventional academe, to a Major National Research Facility, to the formation of Proteomics company Proteome Systems Ltd. There were lots of blind alleys, wrong directions, but we also got some things right and our efforts, along with those of many other groups around the world, did change the face of protein science. While the transformation is by no means yet complete, protein science is very different from the field in the 1990s. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: 20years of Proteomics in memory of Viatliano Pallini. Guest Editors: Luca Bini, Juan J. Calvete, Natacha Turck, Denis Hochstrasser and Jean-Charles Sanchez.