Sebastiaan van Heesch and PhD candidate Leron Kok contributed to the discovery of 1,700 previously unknown microproteins, published in Nature. By making these proteins accessible through public databases, the researchers are opening new opportunities to study their role in diseases such as childhood cancer and identify future therapeutic targets. The discovery also underpins the newly launched ORFeus training programme, coordinated by Van Heesch, which will train the next generation of researchers to explore the ‘dark proteome’.
