Cedars-Sinai Medical Center researchers are advancing the field of single-cell proteomics, a technology that tracks individual proteins in cells to better understand health and disease. This approach allows scientists to connect specific proteins with the cells that contain them, using mass spectrometers to separate and identify these molecules by their mass.
By applying this technology, Cedars-Sinai investigators have identified new types of heart cells and developed methods for analyzing thousands of cells in minutes. Their work is conducted at the Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors Innovation Center, where mass spectrometers operate continuously as part of the Alfred E. Mann Single Cell Precision Medicine Center.
Jennifer Van Eyk, PhD, is recognized as a pioneer in proteomics and recently served as president of the international Human Proteome Organization. In 2024, she was named one of the world’s 20 most impactful analytical scientists in human health by The Analytical Scientist. “I started working in proteomics before the word ‘proteome’ was coined in the 1990s,” Van Eyk said. “At that time, I was among just a few scientists around the world who were trying to accurately measure proteins on a large scale.”
Van Eyk directs clinical proteomics research at Cedars-Sinai and has led studies showing that heart muscle cells are not all identical; her team found two new hybrid types that produce both heart- and neuron-related proteins. She notes the importance of single-cell proteomics for understanding drug effectiveness: “Suppose you have a drug that works 50% of the time,” she said. “Does that mean it’s working 50% in every cell, or is it working 100% in 50% of the cells? The answer is important because it allows you to fix the problem. Single-cell proteomics can provide that information.” Her research interests also include pulmonary hypertension, breast cancer, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
Sarah Parker, PhD, an associate professor at Cedars-Sinai who co-directs its Proteomics and Metabolomics Core with Van Eyk, focuses on making single-cell analysis faster and more efficient through high-throughput techniques. “The challenge is that to perform this analysis, you need to quickly turn and burn through a lot of cells in a reasonable amount of time,” Parker said.
In 2023, Parker helped develop a method enabling mass spectrometers to identify over 1,000 proteins per cell within 15 minutes—doubling previous rates—and is currently studying how hormones affect aortic aneurysms using this technology.
Jesse Meyer, PhD, assistant professor in Computational Biomedicine at Cedars-Sinai, links his interest in aging research with data science approaches to proteomics: “Aging is the biggest predictor of most diseases,” he said. “If we can deeply understand aging, then we can potentially delay the onset of many diseases at once instead of spending so much energy targeting each disease separately.” Meyer received recognition from the US Human Proteome Organization for his early achievements and has contributed tools for collaborative data analysis.
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center has been operating since 1902 in Los Angeles and admitted over 50,000 patients for treatment during calendar year 2022; its current president is Thomas M. Priselac (https://www.cedars-sinai.org/about/annual-report.html). The hospital includes pediatric services and serves as a training center for medical professionals.
According to researchers like Van Eyk: “We’re finding such unexpected things that you couldn’t even have thought about before using these methodologies,” she said. “And the discoveries will continue until we’ve done enough, and then we’ll do the next breakthrough in the technology.”
