Story perspectives

Consortium Discovers 1,700 New Human Proteins, Reveals Cancer Targets

5/7/2026

Summary

Consortium Identifies Proteins

On 6 May 2026, the Princess Máxima Center, University of Michigan, EMBL-EBI and ISB announced a consortium that identified over 1,700 new human proteins.
Analysis of 7,264 ncORFs showed about 25 % produce detectable microproteins, totaling 1,785 peptideins.
CRISPR screens found that disabling the OLMALINC peptidein impairs survival of 85 % of 485 cancer cell lines.
Six pan-essential peptideins emerged as candidate drug targets for cancer immunotherapy.

Summary

Van Heesch Discovers

Sebastiaan van Heesch’s 2019 ribosome-profiling of 80 frozen human hearts uncovered hundreds of new mini-proteins.
The donor pool was enriched for end-stage heart-failure cases, providing a disease-focused view.
The analysis revealed active translation of genomic segments previously classified as non-coding RNAs.
Many of the newly identified “dark proteins” were predicted to reside in mitochondria, implying a role in cardiac energy production.

1 of 2

Consortium Identifies Proteins

On 6 May 2026, the Princess Máxima Center, University of Michigan, EMBL-EBI and ISB announced a consortium that identified over 1,700 new human proteins.
Analysis of 7,264 ncORFs showed about 25 % produce detectable microproteins, totaling 1,785 peptideins.
CRISPR screens found that disabling the OLMALINC peptidein impairs survival of 85 % of 485 cancer cell lines.
Six pan-essential peptideins emerged as candidate drug targets for cancer immunotherapy.

1 / 2