As life sciences become increasingly dependent on technology, research centres create separate "core facilities" with innovative and cutting edge technologies, to serve their own institute. From now on "Core for Life"- members will share the fast-evolving technologies and expertise from their core facilities at European level. This will allow them to maximize resources and best practices to produce excellent science. Core for Life members today are CRG (Spain), VIB (Belgium), EMBL (Germany), FGCZ (Switzerland), MPI-CBG (Germany) and VBC-CSF (Austria).
Since technologies turn over very fast and become more expensive, no individual research laboratory can master all technologies and no institute can house all kind of platforms and equipment. The way forward is to set up a dialogue with peers. This is the starting point of Core for Life, the new pan-European excellence alliance for Core Facilities. This new alliance will allow the partners' research institutes to have a forum for scientists and to boost scientific collaboration and new interdisciplinary projects.
The main goals of Core for Life are: to identify and share good practices and procedures, to provide specialized training, to explore and validate new technologies, to share equipment and services, and to engage European and national funding bodies in a dialogue to increase funding opportunities for Core Facilities.
"At VIB the core facilities play a crucial role in enabling our scientists to achieve ambitious research goals in a cost effective way. By making use of the suite of state-of-the art core facilities our researchers plug in on sophisticated technologies to execute their interdisciplinary projects. As technologies become more expensive and short-lived the next step to stay at the forefront is the leverage of capabilities through strategic alliances where platform sharing is key. I am delighted that Core for Life enables this collaboration", states Geert Van Minnebruggen, Head of the Core Facilities at VIB (Belgium).
"Research institutes today have to decide on a few technological areas in which it will strive to be at the cutting edge and commit a continuous investment in order to stay there, and need to guarantee access to other platforms that cannot be provided at an equal level of sophistication in-house. By sharing platforms and expertise across institutes, Core for Life will answer this need, and at the same time deliver integrated core facility expertise to the scientific community. Together we will co-develop new models of managing core facilities, and provide high-level training to the next generation of scientists.", adds Doris Meder, Head of the Core Facilities at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona (Spain).
Geert Van Minnebruggen in Belgium and Doris Meder in Spain were the initiators of this initiative, which now counts some of the most important research institutes among its members. Core for Life starts with a pilot group of partners but aims, in the long run, to translate this initiative to the whole Core Facility Community. In time, Core for Life aims to provide training to the next generation of Core Facility scientists.
MEMBERS COUNTRY CORE FACILITIES DIRECTOR
Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG)
http://www.crg.eu
Spain Doris Meder
European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL)
http://www.embl.org
Germany Christian Boulin
Functional Genomics Center Zurich (FGCZ)
http://www.fgcz.ch
Switzerland Ralph Schalpbach
Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG)
http://www.mpi-cbg.de
Germany Ivan Baines
Vienna Biocenter Campus (VBC) / Campus Science Support Facilities GmbH (CSF)
http://www.viennabiocanter.org / http://www.csf.ac.at
Austria Andreas Tiran
VIB
http://www.vib.be
Belgium Geert Van Minnebruggen
ABOUT THE CENTRE FOR GENOMIC REGULATION (CRG)
The Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) is an international biomedical research institute of excellence whose mission is to discover and advance knowledge for the benefit of society, public health and economic prosperity.
The CRG believes that the medicine of the future depends on the groundbreaking science of today. This requires an interdisciplinary scientific team focused on understanding the complexity of life from the genome to the cell to a whole organism and its interaction with the environment, offering an integrated view of genetic diseases.
The CRG is a unique centre in Spain, based in an innovative organization research model. Group leaders at the CRG are recruited internationally and receive support from the centre to set up and run their groups. An external Scientific Advisory Board, made up of 12 world leaders in the different areas, evaluates them. The result of evaluations conditions the future of the CRG scientists, no matter whether they have open-ended or time-limited contracts. This ensures the mobility and the renewal of the workforce.
ABOUT THE EUROPEAN MOLECULAR BIOLOGY LABORATORY (EMBL)
The European Molecular Biology Laboratory is a basic research institute funded by public research monies from 20 member states (Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom) and associate member state Australia. Research at EMBL is conducted by approximately 85 independent groups covering the spectrum of molecular biology. The Laboratory has five units: the main Laboratory in Heidelberg, and Outstations in Hinxton (the European Bioinformatics Institute), Grenoble, Hamburg, and Monterotondo near Rome. The cornerstones of EMBL's mission are: to perform basic research in molecular biology; to train scientists, students and visitors at all levels; to offer vital services to scientists in the member states; to develop new instruments and methods in the life sciences and to actively engage in technology transfer activities. Around 190 students are enrolled in EMBL's International PhD programme. Additionally, the Laboratory offers a platform for dialogue with the general public through various science communication activities such as lecture series, visitor programmes and the dissemination of scientific achievements.
ABOUT THE FUNCTIONAL GENOMICS CENTER ZURICH (FGCZ)
The Functional Genomics Center Zurich (FGCZ) is a joint state-of-the-art research and training facility of the ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich. With latest technologies and expert support in genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and bioinformatics, the FGCZ carries out research projects and technology development in collaboration with the Zurich Life Science research community. With more than 180 new research projects initiated per year and an active user base of more than 2000 researchers, the FGCZ is the largest integrated technology platform for Omics research in Switzerland."
ABOUT THE MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE OF MOLECULAR CELL BIOLLOGY AND GENETICS (MPI-CBG)
The Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG), founded in 1998, is one of 80 institutes of the Max Planck Society, an independent, non-profit organization in Germany. "How do cells form tissues?" has been and still is the question that researchers at MPI-CBG are tackling from different angles. Molecular cell biologists provide insight into basic processes of cellular life and organization. Developmental biologists and geneticists place these functions into the context of tissue development in different model organisms like zebrafish, Drosophila, C. elegans, or mouse.
The MPI-CBG has also invested extensively in Services and Facilities to allow research scientists shared access to sophisticated and expensive technologies.
ABOUT THE VIENNA BIOCENTER CAMPUS (VBC) / CAMPUS SCIENCE SUPPORT FACILITIES (CSF)
The Campus Vienna Biocenter (VBC) is one of the leading multi-disciplinary biomedical research centers in Europe and the premier location for Life Science in Austria. It hosts a broad spectrum of Life Science players ranging from universities, basic research institutions and biotech companies. Most prominent campus members are the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP), the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology (IMBA), the Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology (GMI) and the Max F. Perutz Laboratories (MFPL).
The Campus Science Support Facilities GmbH (CSF) is a publicly funded non-profit organization to provide cutting edge research infrastructure primarily to members of VBC. Spare resources may be offered to off-campus academic research institutions or companies.
ABOUT THE VLAAMS INSTITUUT VOOR BIOTECHNOLOGIE (VIB)
VIB is a non-profit research institute in life sciences. About 1,300 scientists conduct strategic basic research on the molecular mechanisms that are responsible for the functioning of the human body, plants, and microorganisms. Through a close partnership with four Flemish universities − UGent, KU Leuven, University of Antwerp, and Vrije Universiteit Brussel − and a solid funding program, VIB unites the forces of 76 research groups in a single institute. The goal of the research is to extend the boundaries of our knowledge of life. Through its technology transfer activities, VIB translates research results into products for the benefit of consumers and patients and contributes to new economic activity. http://www.vib.be
MEDIA CONTACT:
Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) – Press office
Laia Cendrós – laia.cendros@crg.eu - +34 93 316 0237 / +34 607 611 798