New generation of researchers focus on the ‘dark proteome’

3 Sep 2026

University College Cork (UCC) researchers are part of a new European training programme, ORFeus, focusing on the ‘dark proteome’: a group of proteins whose existence was unknown until recently.

These proteins regulate processes in (cancer) cells and may play an important role in the development of new treatments, such as immunotherapy. One of the Principal Investigators on the project is Prof. Pasha Baranov, School of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, UCC.

UCC's role in the programme is to provide expertise and training in the ribosome profiling technique that enables identification of novel translons, the RNA regions that are translated into proteins. 

As part of the project, fifteen PhD candidates will be trained to become independent researchers and will specialise in this emerging field. Previous research showed that the ‘dark proteome’ offers opportunities for new treatments for various diseases. With fifteen PhD candidates focusing on this group of previously unknown proteins, an increasingly better understanding of this research field and of the possibilities to apply it to new therapies, for example pediatric cancer, is gained.

The researchers will work in fifteen research groups across different European countries. In addition to their research, the PhD candidates will follow a joint training programme. They will receive both professional and scientific training and will undertake internships with participating companies. As a result, promising discoveries can be translated more quickly into clinical applications. Collaboration is central to this. 

Prof. Pasha Baranov, School of Biochemistry & Cell Biology, UCC commented: “ORFeus’s research focus is a recently discovered phenomenon that is still poorly characterised. Thus, in addition to its biomedical relevance, this programme has the potential to improve our fundamental understanding of how genomes express protein molecules.”  

The ORFeus programme will begin in October with the recruitment of students and has a duration of four years. It is coordinated by the Princess Máxima Center for Pediatric Oncology in the Netherlands and includes 26 international partners.

The participating research institutions are: Princess Máxima Center for Pediatric Oncology (NL, coordinator), Hubrecht Institute – KNAW (NL), Antoni van Leeuwenhoek/Netherlands Cancer Institute (NL), Ghent University (BE), University of Dundee (UK), The Institute of Cancer Research, London (UK), University of Leeds (UK), University of Southampton (UK), University College Cork (IE), University of Oslo (NO), Hospital del Mar Research Institute (ES), Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (DE), Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (DE), and the University of Lausanne (CH).

The participating companies and research partners are: Enara Bio (UK), Oxford Nanopore Technologies (UK), EIRNA Bio (IE), Bruker (DE), myNEO (BE), Boehringer Ingelheim (AT), Immudex (DK), Immagina Biotechnology (IT), Tesorai (US), ProFound Therapeutics (US), and EMBL-EBI (European Bioinformatics Institute, UK/DE). In addition, Oncode Institute (NL) provides training in intellectual property and entrepreneurship.

ORFeus is funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions, grant agreement no. 101309891.[JZ1.1]

The views and opinions expressed are, however, solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Executive Agency (REA). Neither the European Union nor the European Research Executive Agency (REA) can be held responsible for them.