Latest News

  • 2020-07-16

    Third animation from CORBEL released on COVID-19-applicable services and technologies from LS RIs

    Now, more than ever, biomedical research needs to be done with speed, efficiency, and high-quality standards in order to help patients effectively fight diseases like COVID-19. But too often, researchers find themselves without enough time, resources, access to facilities, or knowledge of recommended standards to successfully complete their research. 

    That’s exactly where European Life Science Research Infrastructures, which collaborate within CORBEL and EOSC-Life, can help.

    The LS RIs provide access to high-end facilities and services for biological and medical research – from human samples to mouse models, imaging technologies to chemical screening and data analysis. Plus, we can advise on ethical, legal and societal issues in biomedical research. This video presents 10 services of the European Life Science Research Infrastructures that can be used to advance research on coronavirus and other diseases. Find out more here

     

    View the video here

     

    This video was commissioned by BBMRI-ERIC within the CORBEL project. 

  • 2020-07-03

    Assets and Sustainability Plan of the CORBEL project

    The core purpose of CORBEL was to drive LS RI interoperability: the project aimed to operationalise the interfaces, access protocols, data management, and ELSI support so that users could seamlessly access the rich landscape of European biological and medical research infrastructure services. CORBEL enabled the LS RIs to support users throughout the execution of a scientific project: from planning and grant applications through to the long-term sustainable management and exploitation of research data.

    Download this table to view the sustainability plans for the assets produced within the project.

  • 2020-07-02

    Second CORBEL animation on the Life Science Research Infrastructures now online

    The second animated video on how the Life Science Research Infrastructures serve the research community is featured on the “About” section of the sustainable LS RI website: https://lifescience-ri.eu/about.html as well as on YouTube.

    In this video the focus is on RIs as such, how we operate individually and collectively across Europe, and in which areas we can offer expertise, creating a powerful impact on the European research landscape.

    We invite you all to make use of the videos, spread them widely across your own community, integrate them on your websites, use them at the next booth you organize, tweet and re-tweet them, put them on LinkedIn, and include them in your newsletters. Enjoy!

  • 2020-07-01

    CORBEL Open Call Users share their experience in a final survey

    Within the CORBEL Open Calls for Advanced Research Projects, more than 90 cutting-edge services and technologies were made available, including access to advanced imaging technologies, high-throughput screening, systems biology, 3D modelling, data repositories and biobanks. Among all eligible projects, 37 excellent scientific projects in need of on-site, remote or virtual access across two or more of the participating LS RIs were identified, selected and supported.

     

    The CORBEL Open Call Users were questioned about their experience in a final survey. Download the survey results here to see how CORBEL helped to increase the visibility of research infrastructures and how well our users rated various aspects of working with RIs. 

  • 2020-06-10

    First CORBEL Animation on User Stories Online

    CORBEL has released the first in a series of animated videos on the benefits of working with Life Science Research Infrastructures. 

     

    "European Life Science Research Infrastructures: How Users Advance their Research Projects" takes a look at ways our Open Call users took advantage of cutting-edge technologies from CORBEL Research Infrastructures like Euro-BioImaging, ISBE and BBMRI to make discoveries in their research fields. 

     

    We hope this video serves as inspiration to future potential users to get in touch with the LS RIs and find out how we can help you! 

     

    Frauke Leitner (Euro-BioImaging) and Sonja Hansen (MDC) drafted this video within WP4 using BIOCOM to design and animate the videos. We encourage our partners to share it widely!

  • 2020-05-18

    WP6/WP4 Ontologies Accepted as Community Standards into the OBO Foundry

    Three CORBEL anatomy and development ontologies for marine metazoan experimental models — Amphioxus, the hydrozoan Clytia and echinoderms (in collaboration with Echinobase) — have been successfully released and reviewed by the OBO foundry operations committee and will be published in the OBO Foundry ontology registry shortly (http://www.obofoundry.org/). The Open Biological and Biomedical Ontology (OBO) Foundry is a collective of ontology developers that are committed to collaboration and adherence to shared principles. The mission of the OBO Foundry is to develop a family of interoperable ontologies that are both logically well-formed and scientifically accurate. Within the CORBEL framework, and with the support of EMBRC as provider of marine models, these ontologies will be incorporated into the MARIMBA public database (http://marimba.obs-vlfr.fr) in order to link genomic information for these animals to spatial expression data. More widely, they will provide community standards as these organisms are increasingly adopted as models by the international research community.  

  • 2020-05-12

    CORBEL sensitive data paper scores in top 5% of all research outputs

    The consensus exercise performed within CORBEL WP 3 on “Sharing and reuse of individual participant data from clinical trials: principles and recommendations”, published in 2017 in BMJ Open, has received considerable notice by the scientific community. Up to now, the paper has received more than 10000 downloads and an attention score of 90 (Altmetrics). The publication is in the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric and has received a high Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (97th percentile). The Altmetrics statistics underlines the important contribution of CORBEL to the management of sensitive data from clinical research.

  • 2020-05-12

    Publication: Assessment of a demonstrator repository for individual clinical trial data built upon DSpace

    Within CORBEL and its Work Package 3 (Community-driven cross-infrastructure joint research), considerable work on providing access to patient-level clinical trial data was performed (e.g. https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/7/12/e018647). Recently, ECRIN and the University of Düsseldorf, Germany, have published another paper in F1000 Research, referring to Subtask 3.3.3 of CORBEL (Development of pilots/demonstrators). The objective of the study was to develop and evaluate a demonstrator repository, using a widely used repository system (DSpace), and then explore its suitability for providing access to individual participant data for clinical research.

    In total, 19 quality criteria were defined, using previous work assessing clinical data repositories as a guide, and the demonstrator implementation was then assessed with respect to those criteria. The system developed was able to support most of the pre-defined requirements, though there are areas where support could be improved. DSpace clearly has considerable potential in this context and appears a suitable base for further exploration of the issues around storing sensitive data.

  • 2020-04-08

    ELIXIR Bioinformatics Industry Forum

    Due to the current situation with the Coronavirus (COVID-19), the ELIXIR Bioinformatics Industry Forum changed from a face-to-face meeting to a series of virtual events. The ELIXIR Bioinformatics Industry Forum aims to build a community for technical specialists to discuss visionary ideas, bottlenecks and solutions to some of the major challenges in the data driven life science sector. The first webinar is scheduled for Tuesday 28 April 2020, 14:00 GMT, click here to register.

    Follow-on Webinars

    More information on the Elixir Europe website.

  • 2020-03-18

    Photo Competition in Plant Phenotyping

    It’s competition time: EMPHASIS, in collaboration with the International Plant Phenotyping Network (IPPN e.V.) is launching a photo competition in plant phenotyping. EMPHASIS is looking for the best photographs depicting plant phenotyping from any angle. These could include (but are not restricted to) photographs of researchers, phenotyping facility, equipment, plants, experimental images or artistic interpretations of the topic. Everyone is welcome to participate.

    Deadline: 30 August 2020

    Find out more on the EMPHASIS website.

News Archive

  • 2020-05-12

    LS RI Website Launches with COVID-19 Resources

    A new website, lifescience-ri.eu, brings together the vast services of 13 Life Science Research Infrastructures in order to advance research in the life sciences. This website aims to be a common source of comprehensive information about the 13 European LS RIs, their activities, offers, news and funding opportunities. Their joint service catalogue allows to identify which RI might be able to meet a certain need. The success stories illustrate how access to RI resources can advance research projects.

    While we are still adding content to the site, we couldn’t wait to share a dedicated page on LS RI resources for research on COVID-19. Please take a careful look at what services & resources are being made available immediately and at little to no cost for the scientific community at large.

  • 2020-05-12

    New Life Science RI brochure available

    "For the advancement of science: Working with European Life Science Research Infrastructures" is a new brochure created out of CORBEL to introduce the Life Science RIs, and it is now available. Please click here to download the PDF (4.8 Mb).

    In the brochure, we want to explain why access to services and technologies offered by the RIs, the collaborative work of RIs, and in particular, the creation of common service pipelines are advancing life science research. We would like to feature the RIs in our WP4 impact brochure, which are committed to continue their joint efforts independently of CORBEL, and which have indicated that they willing to set up bilateral collaboration agreements.

    A website presenting the LS RIs will launch in Spring 2020. 

    Explore the many advantages of working with Life Science Research Infrastructures! 

  • 2020-04-21

    CORBEL webinar: ‘The BBMRI ELSI Services across the Nodes & BMS RIs’

    The CORBEL webinar series continues with a presentation by Michaela Mayrhofer from BBMRI-ERIC. The BBMRI-ERIC ELSI Services supports facilitating compliance with regulatory requirements and best practice standards. The service started working for the biobanking community and subsequently extend to the BMS community and includes:

    • The ELSI Knowledge Base is an open-access resource platform, containing practical knowledge and information on relevant ELSI topics.
    • The Ethics Check is a support service for researchers who are applying for H2020 research projects or similar. We assist with the compulsory Ethics Self-Assessment section during the application phase.
    • The ELSI Policy Monitoring follows relevant policy and regulatory developments at European level. We organise coordinated responses to relevant public consultations, as well as other interventions.

    The CORBEL webinar series aims to address challenges and share best practice between biological and medical research infrastructures. The series is aimed at technical operators of RIs and is aligned with the CORBEL competency framework.

    CORBEL webinars include an audience Q&A session during which attendees can ask questions and make suggestions. Please note that all webinars are recorded and available for viewing.

    Date: 21 April 2020. Time: 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM CET (Please note that this webinar was postponed from 25th February)

    More information & Register Online.

  • 2020-04-16

    Wanted: Speaker for webinar Communicating your RI during COVID-19

    CORBEL is looking for a webinar speaker available at the end of April/early May. The webinar has a working title “Communicating your RI during COVID-19” and will be aimed at communications managers and officers as well as other team members from RIs and their networks. As many RIs and their nodes are shifting focus to COVID-19 research at this time, communications teams are interested in:

    • Communicating the importance of European coordination in research to solve global problems, framing where their RI fits into this landscape (through press releases, social media contents or other suitable channels)
    • Promoting other research activities of their networks when much seems irrelevant to the public at the moment

    The webinar will be run as hands-on as possible and the speaker should be available to provide feedback on communication strategies (e.g. press releases or tweets composed) for a few days after the webinar.

    Previous CORBEL webinars can be found here: https://www.corbel-project.eu/webinars.html

    Please submit a brief message of interest and price quote to caitlin.ahern(at)bbmri-eric.eu by 17 April.

  • 2020-04-15

    New date for webinar Best practice in training and communication

    CORBEL and EOSC-Life organize the webinar series "Engaging with your community through events and training". The date has been set for the last webinar of the series, which will be an interactive discussion where you can ask questions and get tips about your training events and communication.

    Date: April 23 2020, 14:00-15:00 CEST

    Speakers will be Sarah Morgan from EMBL-EBI, and Caitlin Ahern from BBMRI-ERIC.

    You should attend or watch the 3 previous webinars of the series if you want to attend this one. For more information on this webinar please visit the webinar section, and to register for this webinar please click here.

  • 2020-04-08

    Webinar: Engaging with your community through events and training

    CORBEL and EOSC-Life are running a webinar series on communication and event organisation. In this series we will discuss about event management, course design and delivery, and effective scientific communication. You do not need to watch all of the webinars. You can dip in and out and watch only the webinars you are interested in. You can watch them live or catch up on the recordings. If you attend the last webinar of the series, we recommend that you have attended or watched the three previous webinars. You will need to register for each of the live webinars that you wish to join by using the registration links provided below.

     

    More information and registration in the Webinar section.

  • 2020-03-24

    CORBEL Final AGM Presentations Available

    The Final AGM of the CORBEL project took place March 2, 2020 at The Hotel in Brussels. During the final meeting, the CORBEL consortium members presented solutions for harmonising user access to the European life science research infrastructures (LS RIs). Topics included access, data, quality management, training, ELSI, innovation support, and more. Presentations by scientists from the biological and medical user communities illustrated how concerted access to multiple RIs advanced their projects, thus demonstrating the benefit of CORBEL for European life science research.

    The one-day meeting was open to European scientists from the biological and medical field, potential users of the CORBEL common services as well as other stakeholders generally interested in CORBEL and the European life science RIs.

    A full report of the meeting will be published as a deliverable forthcoming. 

    View the presentations here: 

    Agenda

    Welcome Niklas Blomberg (Coordinator CORBEL)

    For the Advancement of Science - Working With Biomedical RIs (Chair Frauke Leitner and Sonja Hansen)

    New frontiers in health research data (Chair Serena Battaglia)

    Developing people, services and facilities: Supporting Life Science research infrastructures (CORBEL Highlights and panel discussion on opportunities) Chair Antje Keppler

    Managing, Integrating and Reusing Data across Life Science RIs (CORBEL Highlights and panel discussion on opportunities) Chair Jacques Demotes

    Panel Discussion - Future joint access - the future of research infrastructures - connecting users, science and facilities

    • Susan Daenke: Structural biology
    • Nicolas Pade: Ecosystem access
    • Toni Andreu: Health research
    • Daria Julkowska (EJP RD)
    • Hella Lichtenberg from PT-DLR (ERA-CVD, NEURON)
    • Ignacio Baanante from ISCIII (ERA-PerMed, EuroNanoMed)
    • Sarah Nisbet (Bioplatforms Australia)
    • Josep Maria Haro Abad (SYNCHROS)
    • Chair Niklas Blomberg

    Key Note - Lucia Banci (CERM)

  • 2020-03-16

    Canceled - Workshop: Best practices in Biomedical Public-Private Research Collaborations

    Due to the current situation with Covid-19, the CORBEL Innovation Helpdesk team canceled the best practice workshop on the theme of public-private research collaboration, which was scheduled on 21-22 April 2020 in Riga, Latvia. Any further information on this workshop or the possibility of rescheduling will be send out as soon as possible. Fur more information please visit the website.

  • 2020-03-16

    EOSC-Life Featured in Article on COVID-19 and the EOSC

    The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) will accelerate research to address future global challenges such as COVID-19.

    Niklas Blomberg, coordinator of CORBEL and EOSC-Life, was featured in an article highlighting the need for the EOSC to address global health crises such as Coronavirus.

    As we collaborate to build the EOSC, a few use cases are already showing the potential benefit of the EOSC to global health.

    Blomberg argues that open science allows faster, more efficient research, which he has experienced first-hand while collaborating with ELIXIR-Belgium and de.NBI/ELIXIR-Germany on an initiative addressing COVID-19.

    “Open data and open reproducible workflow also allow European scientists to collaborate globally,” says Blomberg. “Our recent collaboration on COVID-19 genomes is a great example: four teams – two European, one in Australia, one in US work together to make reproducible workflows openly available to scientists globally.”

    “This is the core of EOSC – fast, open access to as wide a pool of data and tools as possible for scientific collaborations.” EOSC-Life is one of the EOSC projects accelerating open science through open data, open reproducible tools and workflows in the life sciences field.

    Read the full article here.

    Credits for image EOSCsecretariat

  • 2020-03-10

    Joint EUROMARINE-EMBRC 2020 Call for proposals

    In 2020, EuroMarine and EMBRC jointly launched a new call offering access to EMBRC services to early career researchers affiliated with a EuroMarine member organisation.

    EMBRC offers 50,000€ worth of services to 10 EuroMarine early career scientists (as defined by the EuroMarine OYSTER (early career scientists) group, i.e., PhD students or researchers within 5 years of their PhD). Applicants must belong to an organisation that is a 2020 member of EuroMarine. Each successful applicant will benefit up to 5,000 €.

    Applications will be pre-selected and ranked on the basis of their description of the research project to which the targeted EMBRC services will contribute, considering its intrinsic scientific value, its novelty and its relevance to the general scientific strategy of EuroMarine, as outlined in the EuroMarine Ocean Frontier manifesto.

    Proposals must involve mobility on the part of the young researchers, who must visit at least one EMBRC facility located outside the country in which they are based.

    More information on the timeline, the application and further contact via the website at http://euromarinenetwork.eu/calls/joint-euromarine-embrc-2020-call-proposals.

  • 2020-03-10

    Bioactive compounds part of EU-OPENSCREEN compound library

    Bioactive compounds are now part of EU-OPENSCREEN compound library. The bioactive compounds were selected from compounds contained in the Probes & Drugs portal, an up-to-date public resource for high-quality chemical tools. The bioactives’ library was designed with a strategy to cover wide target space, prioritizing selective, potent compounds. The final bioactives’ library of ~2,400 compounds covers almost 2,000 protein targets, containing several hundred compounds labeled as chemical probes and approved drugs.

    EU-OPENSCREEN is ready to welcome compound donations from chemists to be included into the jointly used EU-OPENSCREEN compound collection. The donated compounds will be screened against a wide range of biological assays, thereby delivering extensive information about their biological activities. For more info visit the pages "How to donate your compound" and "Screening of donated compounds" on the EU-OPENSCREEN website.

  • 2020-02-26

    CORBEL Final Meeting Moved to Brussels

    Due to travel restrictions in northern Italy because of the Corona virus, the location of the CORBEL Final Meeting (as well as the EOSC-Life AGM) has been changed to Brussels, Belgium.

    We realise that a short-notice move is inconvenient and might incur extra costs, nevertheless we believe it is important to not cancel or postpone the project AGMs. Especially for CORBEL, with the project ending at the end of May, it would be very challenging to find a new date, venue and start from scratch with the organisation.

    We would ask you therefore to please state whether or not you will attend by FRIDAY 28 FEBRUARY via this new Evenbrite page https://meetings_in_brussels.eventbrite.co.uk (THE HOTEL)

    Travel and accommodation information can be found in Eventbrite too.

    The Agendas stay the same: CORBEL and EOSC-Life

    Please accept our apologies for the last minute move, but we hope to see as many of you next week nevertheless! Many thanks for your understanding!

    CORBEL Final Meeting, Date: 2 March, 2020

    EOSC-Life AGM, Date: 3 – 4 March, 2020

    Venue: BRUSSELS, The Hotel Brussels (https://www.thehotel-brussels.be/en/home.htm)

     

     

     

     

  • 2020-02-25

    Register now for the CORBEL webinar 'The BBMRI ELSI Services across the Nodes & BMS RIs'

    The CORBEL webinar series continues with a presentation by Michaela Mayrhofer from BBMRI-ERIC. The BBMRI-ERIC ELSI Services supports facilitating compliance with regulatory requirements and best practice standards. The service started working for the biobanking community and subsequently extend to the BMS community and includes:

    • The ELSI Knowledge Base is an open-access resource platform, containing practical knowledge and information on relevant ELSI topics.
    • The Ethics Check is a support service for researchers who are applying for H2020 research projects or similar. We assist with the compulsory Ethics Self-Assessment section during the application phase.
    • The ELSI Policy Monitoring follows relevant policy and regulatory developments at European level. We organise coordinated responses to relevant public consultations, as well as other interventions.

    The CORBEL webinar series aims to address challenges and share best practice between biological and medical research infrastructures. The series is aimed at technical operators of RIs and is aligned with the CORBEL competency framework.

    CORBEL webinars include an audience Q&A session during which attendees can ask questions and make suggestions. Please note that all webinars are recorded and available for viewing.

    Date: 21 April 2020. Time: 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM CET (Please note that this webinar was postponed from 25th February)

    More information & Register Online.

  • 2020-02-21

    DEMO cBioportal: Data-integration platform for cancer research

    The CORBEL webinar series continues with a presentation by Noriko A. Cassman, from the Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI).
    Participants will be introduced to the data-integration platform cBioPortal. Here, different sources of research data (clinical, imaging, biosample and experimental) of a study are integrated, enabling viewing, querying and analysis.

    This webinar is aimed at data managers, researchers, PhD students and postdocs involved in clinical, translational and biomedical research.

     

    More information and registration in the Webinars section.

  • 2020-02-12

    CORBEL Sensitive Data Talk at CPDP International Conference

    The annual Computers, Privacy and Data Protection (CPDP) International Conference took place 22-24 January 2020. The event was held at Les Halles de Schaerbeek and Area42 in Brussels and focused on the theme of Data Protection and Artificial Intelligence, paving the way for a thorough discussion on a broad range of ethical, legal and policy issues related to new technologies and data analytics. Michaela Th. Mayrhofer, BBMRI-ERIC Head of ELSI Services & Research, gave a talk within the session "Open Science with Health and Genetic Data: A Contradiction?", mentioning EOSC-Life and CORBEL. The complete presentation can be found here.

  • 2020-02-12

    Marie Curie Alumni meeting cancelled

    The Marie Curie Alumni meeting on March 28-29 in Zagreb was just cancelled. Please visit the website for any further information: https://www.mariecuriealumni.eu/2020-conference/home.

  • 2019-11-29

    Register now for the CORBEL Final Open Meeting!

    The final CORBEL meeting will take place on 2 March 2020 in Brussels, Belgium. The consortium will present their solutions for harmonising user access to the European Life Science research infrastructures (LS RIs), comprising topics such as access, data or quality management, training, ELSI and innovation support. Presentations by scientists from the biological and medical user communities will illustrate how concerted access to multiple RIs advanced their projects, thus demonstrating the benefit of CORBEL for European life science research.
    The one-day meeting will be open to European scientists from the biological and medical field, potential users of the CORBEL common services as well as other stakeholders generally interested in CORBEL and the European LS RIs. More information is available here.

    The final CORBEL meeting will be organised back-to-back with the 1st Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the EOSC-Life project on 3-4 March 2020. EOSC-Life is the new cluster project of the European LS RIs within the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), aiming at creating an open collaborative space for digital biology in Europe. The 1st EOSC-Life AGM will comprise one day open to selected stakeholders and a second internal day for the consortium.

  • 2019-11-28

    Workshop: Best practices in Biomedical Public-Private Research Collaborations - Registration now open

    Registration is now open for a best practice workshop on the theme of public-private research collaboration (13-14 February 2020 in Lisbon, Portugal), organised by the CORBEL Innovation Helpdesk team.

    This 2-day event will focus on all relevant aspects of setting up such collaborations, from initial contacts through planning and negotiation to completion of legal agreements and project implementation. In addition to plenary lectures covering various aspects there will be a use case for participants to work on in teams. The workshop is aimed primarily at representatives of research infrastructures and academic institutions who are or expect to be involved in the organization and implementation of such collaborative research programmes. More information, the registration link and the agenda can be found here.

  • 2019-11-15

    Second Call for Proposals for Transnational Access Projects at EASI-Genomics

    EASI-Genomics (European Advanced infraStructure for Innovative Genomics) has opened a second call for transnational access projects: 

    Timeline: 

    Call open: 15.10.2019 8:00 CET 
    Proposal submission deadlines: 01.12.2019 20:00 CET 
    Notification to applicants: by 01.04.2020 
    Start of projects: latest 6 months after notification  

    EASI-Genomics is a European Genomics Infrastructure Horizon 2020 project. This novel infrastructure  supports researchers in next-generation sequencing and other high-end genomics applications and  genomic data analysis. The infrastructure is open to academic researchers, research groups and scientific  institutions. Projects from industry, including SMEs can be supported. Throughout four calls for access,  EASI-Genomics will provide support to more than 150 projects for a total budget of 6 million € over the  next four years. The first call for access awarded 32 projects for a total budget of 1.5 million €. The rules  of the European Commission only allow Transnational Access; applicants will not be granted access to a  facility that is in their home country. 

    EASI-Genomics will support integrative projects covering expertise that is not available at the applicants’  home institution sites including high-throughput and cutting-edge sequencing, complex bioinformatic  analysis and possibly DNA extraction (e.g. ancient DNA). Of note, EASI-Genomics can also provide support  for data analysis for already existing data sets. In this case, applicants should describe available data  including sequencing technology used to generate it and the objective of the analysis. Costs of external  user projects for consumables, computation and for personnel required at the facilities will be covered by  EASI-Genomics.  

    EASI-Genomics invites external users to apply for access by opening several calls for proposals. Interested  users can submit proposals to the 2nd  Call online via the EASI-Genomics website until December 01, 2019, 20:00 CET. Applicants are asked to describe the  objectives of their research and the desired experimental and computational methods required to achieve  these objectives. The objective of the EASI-Genomics Infrastructure is to support projects from study  design, through sequence to data analysis. Projects requesting sequencing support that could be provided  by a commercial sequencing service provider will be viewed less favorably. Eligible proposals will be  evaluated for scientific quality, feasibility, and impact. Proposals will be handled confidentially. EASIGenomics recommends external users to contact the facilities offering the services of interest in order to  discuss the feasibility of the submitted project prior to the submission of the proposal.

    Details on the submission process, eligibility and evaluation criteria, and project implementation can be found at www.easi-genomics.eu 

    More information is available here.

  • 2019-11-15

    Registration open for CORBEL webinar 'Event management for Research Infrastructures'

    The Event management webinar will focus on practical aspects of event organisation within EU research projects and will guide you through some of the most important considerations and criteria for events funded from EU projects. It will also present a step-by-step guide for event organisation to help you plan and organise your events, while avoiding common mistakes which may lead to many stressful situations. The webinar will also cover communication and promotion and will give you practical tips to promote your event and efficiently communicate its outcomes. At the end of webinar you will be able to download the practical guidelines for your future events.

    Title: How to make your event successful and eligible for EU funding: Event management for Research Infrastructures

    Speaker: Dana Cernoskova (Scientifika - events for science)

    Date: 3 December 2019

    Time: 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM CET

    More informatione is available here.

  • 2019-11-08

    Euro-BioImaging established as an ERIC for state-of-the-art imaging services in biological and biomedical research

    The European Commission has officially established Euro-BioImaging – which provides life scientists with open access to a broad range of technologies and resources in biological and biomedical imaging – as a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC).

    Imaging technologies have a central role in driving fundamental research and applied innovations in both biological and biomedical research. These technologies help a very broad user and research community to reach breakthrough biological discoveries and to proceed with translation into innovations in the fields of medicine, diagnostics, drug development, biotechnology, and molecular ecology.

    With its ERIC status, Euro-BioImaging is now legally recognised as a European research infrastructure for biological and biomedical imaging. Euro-BioImaging offers life scientists open access to imaging instruments, expertise, training opportunities, and data management services that they do not find at their home institutions or among their collaboration partners. All scientists, regardless of affiliation, area of expertise, or field of activity, can benefit from these pan-European open access services. Euro-BioImaging will ensure excellent research and development across the life sciences in Europe. All Euro-BioImaging services are accessible via www.eurobioimaging.eu. Establishment of the Euro-BioImaging ERIC builds on over 10 years of preparatory work with active engagement of 25 national imaging communities, funded by the European Commission and coordinated by the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL).

    Finland will host the Statutory Seat, the access gateway, and manage the overall coordination of Euro-BioImaging, while EMBL will coordinate access to biological imaging, and Italy will coordinate access to biomedical imaging. EMBL will also coordinate Euro-BioImaging’s data services via the BioImage Archive to store and share imaging data.

    Euro-BioImaging offers state-of-the-art imaging services through its internationally renowned facilities, called Nodes. These Nodes are distributed across Euro-BioImaging’s 15 founding members: Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, EMBL, Finland, France, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Norway, Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, and the UK. Belgium will participate as an observer.

    Background: the rationale for Euro-BioImaging
    Innovative imaging technologies have revolutionised the life sciences by allowing researchers to visualise and measure a broad spectrum of molecular and cellular processes and events with an accuracy and coverage that have been out of reach until now. For the first time in history, we can visualise the molecular processes of life and the basis of human disease, such as tumorigenesis or Alzheimer’s disease, in living cells and tissues in real time. These technologies allow breakthrough biological discoveries and their translation into medical applications. Imaging technologies are thus the central technology platform driving fundamental research in most disciplines of the life sciences, in both biological and biomedical research. By facilitating user access to high-quality imaging facilities, resources, and services, Euro-BioImaging will boost the productivity and impact of research across Europe. In recognition of this, Euro-BioImaging received Landmark status on the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) Roadmap in 2018.

  • 2019-11-08

    Registration is open for ARIA Workshop

    Amsterdam plays host to the next ARIA workshop that will be held on the 25th of February 2020. The workshop will be a series of talks that will give a background to the ARIA software and introduce some of its core features. We will be demonstrating the newly released features around visit and session management, including the financial reporting module developed in collaboration with EU-OPENSCREEN. There will also be an interactive feedback session for feedback and ideas gathering to help shape the future of ARIA. We hope that you will be able to join us at the event, supported by CORBEL and iNEXT with the room provided by the NKI.

    Learn more & register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/aria-workshop-corbel-inext-instruct-eric-tickets-78013220643

  • 2019-10-18

    Call for proposals: ERINHA offers access to cutting-edge high containment facilities

    ERINHA, the European research infrastructure on highly pathogenic agents, launched their first call for proposals to offer scientists free of charge transnational access (TNA) to ERINHA’s full catalog of services, including access to cutting edge high containment facilities.

    Deadline: 15 December, 2019

    More information: https://www.erinha.eu/pilot-transnational-access-calls/

  • 2019-10-18

    Vacancy Note: BBMRI-ERIC ELSI Services Officer

    BBMRI-ERIC is looking for an ELSI Services Officer based in Austria to support our ELSI team on ethical, legal and societal issues in biobanking and biomolecular resources. More information: https://buff.ly/2BgtYJm

  • 2019-10-16

    EATRIS webinar series on reproducibility issues in drug development

    The series focusses on reproducibility issues experienced during specific phases of drug development and is developed in close collaboration with other Research Infrastructures (EU-OPENSCREEN, INFRAFRONTIER, BBMRI, ECRIN) and initiatives such as Translation Together. All webinars will be recorded and available for later viewing and include a Q&A session. The first one is scheduled on November 8th between 15.00 -16.00. For more information and registration: https://eatris.eu/insights/webinar-series-quality-reproducibility-issues-drug-development/

    Schedule:

    SESSION 1: NOVEMBER 8th - 15.00 CET
    The Relevance of Reproducibility for Drug Development: An Introduction
    by Anton Ussi (EATRIS), Leonard Freedman (Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research) and Andreas Scherer (FIMM)

    SESSION 2: NOVEMBER 19th – 15:00 CET
    Quality in high-throughput screening
    by Matthew Hall (NIH NCATS) and Wolfgang Fecke (EU-OPENSCREEN)

    SESSION 3: DECEMBER 13th – 14:00 CET
    Reproducibility in preclinical and animal experimentation
    by Björn Gerlach (PAASP) and Michael Raess (INFRAFRONTIER)

    SESSION 4: DECEMBER 17th – 14:00 CET
    Preanalytical validation and quality systems in biobanking
    by Monica Marchese (IBBL) and Andrea Wutte (BBMRI-ERIC)

    SESSION 5: JANUARY 14th - 15:00 CET
    Technology Platform reproducibility

    by Weida Tong (NCTR/FDA) and Marian Hajduch (IMTM)

    SESSION 6: FEBRUARY 18th – 14:00 CET
    Quality and reproducibility issues related to clinical development

    by Christine Toneatti (ECRIN)

  • 2019-10-04

    TRANSMED Academy - EATRIS has launched E-learning Platform

    EATRIS, the European infrastructure for translational medicine, has launched their own E-learning Platform: TRANSMED Academy.

    TRANSMED Academy provides open access to online courses and webinars around drug development and translational research. Among the available courses, you can find “the Landscape of Translational Medicine”, an online course touching upon key aspects of translational research which has been especially designed for the next generation of translational scientists (PhDs, Postdocs and MDs). You are invited to visit TRANSMED Academy and share your experience with EATRIS.

  • 2019-09-20

    Executive Masters in Management of Research Infrastructures (EMMRI) - Call for applications

    The Executive Masters in Management of Research Infrastructures is an international management development Programme tailored to the specific needs of Research Infrastructures. This Programme is designed to give experienced science professionals the skills and knowledge they need to take on greater managerial responsibilities. Take the opportunity to improve your managerial skills. More details: www.emmri.unimib.it/en

    What can this Executive Masters offer you?

    • A global network of Research Infrastructure colleagues in similar leadership positions
    • An international Faculty composed by dedicated professors and acclaimed experts from research infrastructures
    • A better understanding of how Research Infrastructures in different countries are responding to common challenges
    • Greater awareness of your leadership strengths and weaknesses
    • Innovative ways to help your organisation become more effective.
  • 2019-09-11

    Workshop 'Data visualisation for biology' - apply now!

    It is now possible to apply for participation in the workshop 'Data Visualisation for Biology: A Practical Workshop on Design, Techniques and Tools', organised by EMBL-EBI in association with CORBEL:

     

    Date: Monday 16 - Friday 20 March 2020

    Venue: European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) - Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge, CB10 1SD, United Kingdom

    Application opens: Tuesday 10 September 2019

    Application deadline: Friday 29 November 2019

    More information: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/training/events/2020/data-visualisation-biology-practical-workshop-design-techniques-and-tools-1

     

    As biological datasets increase in size and complexity, we are moving more and more from a hypothesis-driven research paradigm to a data-driven one. As a result, exploration of that data has become even more crucial than in the past.

    In this 5-day course, we will dive into the topic of biological data visualisation and how it can be used to gain insight into and get a "feel" for a dataset, so that targeted analyses can be defined. We will start by covering theoretical questions such as: What is data visualisation? How do we perceive images? How can we visualise data in the best possible way? It will be delivered through a mixture of lectures and workshop sessions, and will also provide hands-on experience in developing visualisations. The course will focus on working with omics (e.g. genomics, transcriptomics) data rather than e.g. imaging data.

    This course is targeted at biologists who want to explore and gain further insight into their own data through the use of visualisation and design approaches. People with different backgrounds and previous expertise in data visualisation are welcome to join the course. Some prior experience in programming would be beneficial, however participants will be divided into groups according to their programming experience for the hands-on element from day 3 onwards. Applicants will be asked to provide detail on their level of programming ability and knowledge of visualisation tools as part of the application process. Some pre-reading and exercises will additionally be sent out to successful applicants prior to the course, and these will also help us decide on the most appropriate groupings.

  • 2019-09-06

    EMBRC-NO Kicks Off In September

    On 4 September 2019, the Norwegian node of EMBRC-ERIC had its kick-off meeting in Bergen. With coordination from the University of Bergen, the following 7 node partners came together to celebrate the milestone:

  • 2019-08-16

    EU-OPENSCREEN-DRIVE: Call for Chemoproteomics and Small Molecule Screening projects

    The EU funded project EU-OPENSCREEN-DRIVE has launched it first chemoproteomics and small molecule screening call. Users will be able to submit their proposals for

  • 2019-08-05

    Euro-BioImaging and EU-OPENSCREEN sign collaboration agreement

    On 11 July 2019, EU-OPENSCREEN and Euro-BioImaging, two of the 13 research infrastructures (RIs) that are collaborating in CORBEL, signed a collaboration agreement in order to jointly support cutting-edge life science research in Europe. In signing this agreement, Euro-BioImaging and EU-OPENSCREEN acknowledge the value and importance of their own field of expertise being embedded in a larger scope of technologies and services offered by complementary life science RIs across Europe.

    Within CORBEL, the two RIs were involved in the development of pipelines for combined service provision, which were evaluated by involving real user projects. By enabling several CORBEL user projects, EU-OPENSCREEN and Euro-BioImaging already demonstrated the feasibility and impact of cross-infrastructure user access and are now aiming at sustaining their achievements by the collaboration agreement. Harmonizing and facilitating user access across the life sciences RIs will increase the user community of the individual RIs, enable interdisciplinary research projects, and drive innovation and scientific progress.

  • 2019-08-05

    Webinar 'Towards a GDPR Code of Conduct for Health Research: where are we today?' - recording online!

    The recording of the CORBEL webinar 'Towards a GDPR Code of Conduct for Health Research: where are we today?' (19 June 2019) is available online now!

  • 2019-06-21

    Webinar 'Genomics and clinical data at your fingertips with open-source software: tranSMART & cBioPortal' - recording online!

  • 2019-06-14

    INFRAFRONTIER2020 Trans-national Access Call: Specialised phenotyping pipelines

    Call topic: Specialised phenotyping pipelines

    In this specialised phenotyping call, access to a comprehensive panel of phenotyping tests, relying on standardized and customized protocols in key therapeutic areas, is provided:

    1) Induced secondary phenotyping screen under acute or more chronic inflammatory conditions

    2) Functional immune-phenotyping screen by mass cytometry

    More information and the call application forms are available here.
    Proposal submission to proposals(at)infrafrontier.eu - there is a rolling deadline, collecting applications at the 1st of every month. Proposal evaluation will start directly after the deadline for applications has passed.

  • 2019-06-11

    Postponed: CORBEL webinar 'Towards a GDPR Code of Conduct for Health Research: where are we today?'

    Due to unforeseen circumstances, we will not be able to run the CORBEL webinar - "Towards a GDPR Code of Conduct for Health Research: where are we today?” today (11 June) at 14:30 CEST. We have rescheduled the webinar to Wednesday, 19 June at 14:30 CEST. We apologise for the inconvenience!

  • 2019-05-21

    Open position: Research scientist in the field of Bioinformatics and Data Management - EMPHASIS/EOSC-Life

    In the framework of EMPHASIS and EOSC-Life, the position of a Research scientist in the field of Bioinformatics and Data Management is open at Forschungszentrum Jülich. Details can be found here.

  • 2019-05-17

    Nanobiotechnology laboratory: Call for proposals

    The European Commission’s Joint Research Center (JRC) Nanobiotechnology laboratory has opened a call for proposals: external researchers can apply for open access to their state-of-the-art equipped facilities designed to foster interdisciplinary studies. A special emphasis lies on characterisation of nanomaterials, microplastics, nanomedicines, advanced materials and their interactions with biological systems, as well as on the detection, identification and characterisation of nanomaterials in food and consumer products.

    The call will close on 7 June 2019. More information is available here.

  • 2019-05-06

    NEURATRIS Webinar: High field MRI in neurodegenerative disease

    In Spring, EATRIS and NEURATRIS are launching a second series of webinars on Neurodegenerative diseases, covering the usage of Ultrahigh Field MRI and other biological and technological tools to study these diseases and their potential application in translational medicine.

    The next webinar will take place on 6 May 2019, 11 q.m. CEST. Registration is possible here.

  • 2019-05-03

    2nd IBISBA 1.0 Open Call for Research Projects

    Aiming to move your research towards industrial application?
    Require services that your institute/university/company* does not have?
    Need to move your innovation project forward?

    Then IBISBA might be able to help.

    You are now invited to apply for access to IBISBA's research facilities (https://www.ibisba.eu/Transnational-Access/T.N.A.-Application) using the framework of the 2nd IBISBA 1.0 call for research projects.

    About the Open Call
    IBISBA 1.0 is operating a Transnational Access (TNA) programme, which provides subsidized access to a set of research facilities. The TNA programme is open to all researchers (public and private sectors)* wishing to translate their research results into pre-industrial innovation.

    About IBISBA 1.0
    IBISBA 1.0 is a H2020 INFRADEV research infrastructure project aiming to create and operate a Pan-European coordinated research infrastructure network to provide innovation services to industrial biotechnology. These services include the hosting of bioprocess development projects, helping to translate results into preindustrial innovation, the development of experimental workflows and standards to improve interoperability and reproducibility, a web-based repository for knowledge asset management and first-rate training for early career stage researchers.

     

    *Researchers from both EU member states and third countries are eligible. Subsidized access to facilities demands compliance (except EU-based SMEs) with EU Open Science rules.

  • 2019-05-03

    INFRAFRONTIER2020 Trans-national Access Call: Precision rat model development

    Call topic: Precision rat model development

    Main objective of this INFRAFRONTIER open call is to facilitate access for the wider biomedical research community to the unique infrastructure and scientific expertise of the participating INFRAFRONTIER partners, to deliver novel rat mutant models that will advance knowledge of human disease and will be of widespread use in biomedical science. Many cognitive and physiological characteristics that make the rat an ideal human disease model and choice for laboratory studies in neurobiology, cardiobiology, and immunology. Recent advances in genome-editing technology will be used to develop new rat models of human disease.

    More information and the call application forms are available here.
    Proposal submission to proposals(at)infrafrontier.eu by 31 May 2019.

  • 2019-05-03

    EMBRC-ERIC is looking for a Communication Officer

    EMBRC-ERIC is hiring a Communication Officer. Find more information here: http://www.embrc.eu/newsroom/job-vacancy-embrc-communication-officer

    Application deadline: midnight on 2nd June 2019

  • 2019-04-26

    BBMRI.QM WebCon series

    The BBMRI-ERIC Quality Management is running a web conference series - this year's series is about the new biobanking standard ISO 20387:2018 “Biotechnology – Biobanking – General requirements for biobanking”. Find more information here: http://www.bbmri-eric.eu/services/bbmri.qm-webcon-series

  • 2019-04-11

    EASI-Genomics: 1st Call for Proposals launched

    The European Advanced infraStructure for Innovative Genomics (EASI-Genomics), a project funded under the European Union’s research and innovation programme Horizon 2020, will provide researchers free-of-charge access to cutting-edge European genomics facilities. EASI-Genomics joins 16 academic and industrial partners to support diverse genomics project from study design, over state-of-the-art sequencing to bioinformatic analysis. EASI-Genomics is an infrastructure project with a total budget of 10 million € that will handle between 150 and 300 projects over a period of 4 years. Ivo Gut from the Centro Nacional de Análisis Genómico of the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CNAG-CRG) coordinates the project.

    The first call for proposals will focus on sequencing of ancient DNA from archaeological samples, analysis of microbiomes that study the diversity and particularities of populations of microorganisms related to diseases, the study of genetic material at single cell level, and epigenetic modifications of genetic material and its organisation in human diseases. This first call was launched on 25th March. EASI-Genomics represents a great opportunity for researchers to access high-end sequencing services delivered by European genomics infrastructures of excellence free-of-charge. More information: www.easi-genomics.eu

  • 2019-04-08

    INFRAFRONTIER2020 Trans-national Access Call: Specialised phenotyping pipelines

    Call topic: Specialised phenotyping pipelines

    In this specialised phenotyping call, access to a comprehensive panel of phenotyping tests, relying on standardized and customized protocols in key therapeutic areas, is provided:

    1) Neurology and behaviour phenotyping pipelines

    2) Induced secondary phenotyping screen under acute or more chronic inflammatory conditions

    3) Functional immune-phenotyping screen by mass cytometry

    More information and the call application forms are available here.
    Proposal submission to proposals(at)infrafrontier.eu by 30 April 2019.

  • 2019-03-29

    Registration open for 5-day Translational Medicine (TMex) course in Barcelona

    Interested in discovering the landscape of Translational Medicine? Want to learn about the job profiles of scientists in Industry?

    Then join the 2019 Winter school "Translational Medicine Explained (TMex)" which will be held in the beautiful Palau Macaya in Barcelona from November 11th – 15th. The fee of 450 Euro includes the 5 day course in Barcelona, catering during the course, one dinners and the e-learning. For more information see here. Review of application documents will be on a first come, first serve basis.

    The TMex winter school 2019 builds on the experience of the C-COMEND and ENLIGHT-TEN courses on translational research and medicine development which in 2016, 2017 & 2018 delivered three highly valued courses. This what the students say:

    • If you have the opportunity to take part in this course – do it. It will fundamentally change your view on how your work as a research scientist can make a difference in the real world outside your lab (Konstantin Kuhne)
    • Very interactive course with a non-traditional approach. The course reflects the reality of translational medicine: getting a lot of people with different backgrounds to work together as a team (Miriam Ayuso)
    • My expectations to the course were very high, and they were fulfilled (Sandra Heckers)
    • It was a difficult decision to leave the lab for 5 days but it absolutely worth it (Kevin Ferreira)

     

    Confirmed speakers:

    • Bob Harris, Professor Immunotherapy, Karolinska
    • Keith Williams, Director, KW Drug Developments
    • Mike Hardman, independent (formerly AstraZeneca)
    • Toni Andreu and Anton Ussi, Directors EATRIS
    • Joaquin Sáez Peñataro, Clinical Pharmacologist and Spanish correspondent for ECRIN

     

    Find out more:

    rosanvegter(at)eatris.eu

    Registration site: https://www.cognitoforms.com/EATRISERIC/TMexCourseInTranslationalMedicine

    Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlOcRYIcels

     

    Try our interactive roadmap of translational medicine

    http://www.transmedacademy.eu/

  • 2019-03-29

    ‘Evaluation of repositories for sharing individual participant data from clinical studies’ – New Publication in 'Trials'

    A multi-stakeholder taskforce set up by the CORBEL consortium (WP3) is developing procedures to provide the scientific community with access to individual patient-level data (IPD) from clinical trials. Access to IPD would ensure data quality and robustness of analyses, improve the accuracy of estimates of benefits from a treatment, and optimise the use of clinical trial data for re-analyses, secondary analyses and meta-analyses. With publishing an ‘Evaluation of repositories for sharing individual-participant data from clinical studies’, a taskforce sub-group has now made an important contribution to the implementation of clinical study data sharing: they analysed existing data repositories using an indicator set to capture the maturity of the repositories’ procedures and their suitability for the hosting of IPD. Their analysis gives an overview about the currently available repositories and can actually help researchers to find a suitable repository for their datasets.

  • 2019-03-15

    INFRAFRONTIER2020 Trans-national Access Call: Specialised phenotyping - metabolic phenotyping pipeline

    Call topic: Specialised phenotyping - metabolic phenotyping pipeline

    Main objective of this INFRAFRONTIER2020 Trans-national Access call is to facilitate access for the wider biomedical research community to the unique infrastructure and scientific expertise of the participating INFRAFRONTIER mouse clinic, where mouse mutant lines can be tested through phenotyping pipelines with special focus on metabolic functions.

    More information and the call application forms are available here.
    Proposal submission to proposals(at)infrafrontier.eu by 15 April 2019.

  • 2019-03-08

    Open position at ECRIN

    ECRIN is looking for a Project Manager (Clinical Research / Medical Devices). Read more about it here.

  • 2019-03-01

    Open positions at the ELIXIR Hub

    The ELIXIR Hub on the Wellcome Genome Campus near Cambridge, UK, has three open positions:

    • Communication Officer
    • Administrative Assistant
    • Project Support Administrator

    More information can be found here.

  • 2019-03-01

    Registration open for the INFRAFRONTIER / IMPC Conference 2019

    The INFRAFRONTIER / IMPC conference 2019, taking place in Finland´s beautiful capital Helsinki on 3 to 5 June, will be focussing on Genetic Variation, Big Data and Ageing – three top prerequisites for a sustainable success of the upcoming era of precision medicine.

    First details on the conference agenda can be found on the INFRAFRONTIER website. Registration is possible via the website. Oral or poster presentations may be offered to the organizers at INFRAFRONTIER and the Finnish host, BioCenter Oulu.

  • 2019-03-01

    New Executive Director at EMBRC-ERIC

    EMBRC-ERIC has recently appointed Dr. Nicolas Pade as new Executive Director. Read more about it here.

  • 2019-02-22

    New publication about identifying predictive biomarkers for pancreatic cancer

    Pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal forms of cancer, and there is a strong need to be able to identify it at an early stage in order to start a treatment as early as possible.

    The challenge of identifying predictive biomarkers for the early stages of pancreatic cancer was tackled by scientists from Leiden University Medical Center, the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the University of Tartu, the National Institute for Health and Welfare in Helsinki and the HUNT Research Centre in Levanger by making use of biobanked samples from five large European population cohorts.

    The work, which was funded by BBMRI-LPC and CORBEL (WP 3 - Medical/Translational Research Use Cases), was now published as a preprint on bioRxiv.

  • 2019-02-22

    'The impact of the GDPR on health research practices' - Recording of CPDP 2019 panel online

    During the upcoming 12th International Computers, Privacy & Data Protection (CPDP) Conference with the focus on Data Protection and Democracy, BBMRI-ERIC organised a panel about 'The impact of the GDPR on health research practices' on 1 February 2019 in Brussels. The panel aimed to assess the practical consequences of the GDPR for data sharing within the EU with regards to biomedical research, especially biobanking.

    A recording of the session is now available on YouTube.

  • 2019-02-14

    New publication about sharing individual participant data from clinical studies

    What do patients and citizens think about the issue of sharing individual participant data (IPD) from clinical studies?

    By means of a survey among patients and citizen groups in Italy, scientists around Cinzia Colombo and Rita Banzi from the Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri IRCCS addressed this question and recently published the results in BMJ Open. Half the groups who responded were aware of the debate about sharing individual participant data from clinical studies and several had an official positive position. Many supported broad access, asking for conditions important for building trust in entities that handle IPD sharing.

    The work was partly conducted in the context of the CORBEL WP3 activities that produced a consensus document about sharing and re-use of individual participant data from clinical trial, published in December 2017.

  • 2019-02-13

    CORBEL News | Issue 9 online

    The latest issue of the CORBEL newsletter is out!

    Read here about the Open Call for research projects, Instruct-ERIC in the spotlight, reports from the Medical Infrastructure/Users Forum meeting and the ‘Best Practices in Biomedical Public-Private Research Collaborations’ workshop, updates from our partners and more!

    Subscribe here if you want to stay informed about what's happening in CORBEL.

  • 2019-01-25

    INFRAFRONTIER2020 Trans-national Access Call: Precision mammalian model development (mouse and rat models)

    Call topic: Precision mammalian model development (mouse and rat models)

    Main objective of this INFRAFRONTIER open call is to facilitate access for the wider biomedical research community to the unique infrastructure and scientific expertise of the participating INFRAFRONTIER partners, to deliver novel mouse lines and rat mutant models that will advance knowledge of human disease and will be of widespread use in biomedical science. Recent advances in genome editing technology will be used to develop new mouse models of human disease. INFRAFRONTIER will provide open access to all newly developed disease models through the European Mouse Mutant Archive (EMMA). Access to this free-of-charge-service will be granted on the basis of the applicant’s research plans and the potential impact of the proposed novel mouse line on the wider biomedical research community. This Trans-national Access call of the INFRAFRONTIER2020 project supports a total of 12 precision mouse model development projects. A complementary call provides support for 3 customised rat model development projects.

    More information and the call application forms are available here (mouse models) and here (rat models).
    Proposal submission to proposals(at)infrafrontier.eu by 15 February 2019.

    INFRAFRONTIER is the European Research Infrastructure for phenotyping, archiving and distribution of model mammalian genomes. The INFRAFRONTIER Research Infrastructure provides access to first-class tools and data for biomedical research, and thereby contributes to improving the understanding of gene function in human health and disease using the mouse model. The core services of INFRAFRONTIER comprise the systemic phenotyping of mouse mutants in the participating mouse clinics, and the archiving and distribution of mouse mutant lines by the European Mouse Mutant Archive (EMMA).

     

     

  • 2019-01-14

    Workshop "Data Visualisation for Biology" - Registration closes 25 January 2019

    The EBI training team in association with CORBEL will be running the course

    "Data Visualisation for Biology: a practical workshop on design, techniques and tools”

    from 11-15 March 2019 at EMBL-EBI, Hinxton, UK. In this 5-day workshop, we will dive into the topic of biological data visualisation and how it can be used to gain insight in and get a "feel" for a dataset, so that targeted analyses can be defined.

    This course is targeted at biologists who want to explore, and gain further insight, into their own data through the use of visualisation and design approaches.

    More information and the registration link is available here.

    Register now to secure your place! Applications close 25 January 2019.

  • 2019-01-11

    CORBEL 2nd Open Call for research projects closed

    On 31 December 2018, the CORBEL 2nd Open Call for research projects was finally closed. Since its launch in March 2018, it generated a lot of interest among European scientists: 23 project applications from academia and industry covering all of the five offered Access Tracks were received. From all eligible projects, 13 applications were finally accepted as CORBEL user projects after undergoing a thorough scientific and technical review, and the latest applications are still being evaluated. The users now have the unparalleled chance to access the requested high-end technologies and services at more than 20 service providers from 10 European biomedical research infrastructures in order to advance their projects.

    Most of the user projects already took up their work – the time frame is rather tight as the service provision has to be completed until the end of the CORBEL project in May 2020. All projects will receive continuous support by the CORBEL Open Call project managers during the access phase as needed.

    The experience gained with the user projects will directly inform CORBEL’s strategy to establish an enduring foundation of collaborative scientific services for biomedical research in Europe and embed the combined infrastructure capabilities into the scientific workflow of advanced users.

  • 2018-12-21

    INFRAFRONTIER2020 Trans-national Access Call: Derivation of germ-free mice (axenic service)

    Call topic: Derivation of germ-free mice (axenic service)

    One of the INFRAFRONTIER2020 project aims is to develop pilot platforms and services supporting microbiome research. A service to derive germ-free (axenic) mice is now provided by three infrastructures with a long standing expertise and track record in the derivation of axenic and gnotobiotic mice, namely the Axenic / Gnoto Facility of the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, the Karolinska Institutet Core Facility for Germ-free Research, and the CNRS Service Isotechnie of the PHENOMIN-TAAM infrastructure. The participating INFRAFRONTIER infrastructures are among very few dedicated facilities in Europe who have the required equipment and expertise to generate germ-free and gnotobiotic mice. All infrastructures routinely offer their services to external users. The participating axenic- and gnotobiology platforms support research into host-microbiota interactions to study the role of the microbiome in both health and disease. This has been the subject of extensive research and established the involvement of the microbiome in metabolism, nutrition, physiology, and immune function and showed that mammalian microbiota play crucial roles in the pathogenesis of many diseases. Access to the axenic service will be granted on the basis of scientific excellence and supports pilot projects for the derivation of-germ-free mice. Further breeding and characterisation of axenic mice or the development of gnotobiotic models can be offered on a fee-for-service or on a collaborative basis.

    More information and the call application form is available here.
    Proposal submission to proposals(at)infrafrontier.eu by 31 January 2019.

    INFRAFRONTIER is the European Research Infrastructure for phenotyping, archiving and distribution of model mammalian genomes. The INFRAFRONTIER Research Infrastructure provides access to first-class tools and data for biomedical research, and thereby contributes to improving the understanding of gene function in human health and disease using the mouse model. The core services of INFRAFRONTIER comprise the systemic phenotyping of mouse mutants in the participating mouse clinics, and the archiving and distribution of mouse mutant lines by the European Mouse Mutant Archive (EMMA).

     

     

  • 2018-12-14

    CORBEL 2nd Open Call - FINAL APPLICATION DEADLINE 31 December 2018!

    The CORBEL Open Call for research projects is going to close finally on 31 December 2018. Applications from companies are especially welcome in this last submission round of the Call. Both SMEs and large enterprises can get support to move their R&D project a step forward. Special information for industrial R&D projects is given on the website focusing on applicants from industry.

  • 2018-11-23

    European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) officially launched

    The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) was officially launched on 23 November 2018 in Vienna. The event highlighted the importance of the EOSC for European research and introduced the new EOSC Portal which provides access to data, services and resources and through which users and service/resource providers can engage with the EOSC.  

  • 2018-11-23

    EurOPDX Research Infrastructure: 1st call for access to patient derived xenograft (PDX) models, resources & expertise

    As part of the EU-funded EDIReX project, the EurOPDX consortium is offering free-of-charge access to the PDX models, resources, and expertise of the EurOPDX Research Infrastructure (RI). Known as Trans-national Access (TA) grants, proposals in two forms are welcome:

    1) SAMPLE – where researchers can request PDX models for their research from our newly developed EurOPDX Data Portal. Then, if selected, they would receive aliquots of a PDX model that has been engrafted and grown in NSG mice, quality controlled according to the high standards of EurOPDX, and delivered alongside its PDX passport containing all important accompanying information.

    2) DEPOSIT – where researchers can request the deposition of their own PDX models within our distributed EurOPDX RI biobank, and displayed within our newly developed public repository, the EurOPDX Data Portal. Proposals that are selected for this type of access grant will have their PDX model health-checked, engrafted and grown in NSG mice by one of the EurOPDX RI node institutes, aliquoted, quality controlled according to the high standards of EurOPDX, then biobanked within the EurOPDX RI and displayed within the EurOPDX Data Portal for increased visibility to facilitate its further use by the wider research community.

    Both forms of access will be provided free-of-charge to successful applicants, excluding final material shipment costs. The 1st call for proposals for both types of access is now open (as of October 31st, 2018), and the deadline for proposal submission is January 31st, 2019. For full information on this call for proposals, please visit: www.europdx.eu/europdxri-ta and download our “Guide for Applicants” and “Application forms”. For any questions regarding the EurOPDX Research Infrastructure Trans-national Access programme, please contact our helpdesk at: ta(at)europdx.eu This call is available to academic and industry researchers from Europe and Worldwide. Full eligibility criteria are listed in our “Guide for applicants” document, downloadable at: www.europdx.eu/europdxri-ta

  • 2018-11-12

    Neuroimaging Webinar Series by EATRIS and NEURATRIS

    EATRIS and NEURATRIS are offering a series of webinars on Neuroimaging in November and December 2018. The series will cover the usage of CEST-MRI, optical imaging and PET imaging in neurodegenerative diseases and their potential application in translational medicine. The webinars will take place on 6, 20 and 27 November and 4 December 2018 from 14:00-15:00 CET and are free of charge. The neuroimaging webinars include an audience Q&A session during which attendees can ask questions at the end of the lecture. Please note that all webinars will be recorded and available for later viewing.

    More information is available here.

  • 2018-10-12

    INFRAFRONTIER2020 Trans-national Access Call - now open

    Call topic: Specialised phenotyping / metabolic and behavioral pipelines

    Main objective of this INFRAFRONTIER2020 Trans-national Access call is to facilitate access for the wider biomedical research community to the unique infrastructure and scientific expertise of the participating INFRAFRONTIER mouse clinics, where mouse mutant lines can be tested through specialised metabolic- and behavioural phenotyping pipelines. Disturbed energy balance regulation results in obesity and in numerous related metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes mellitus. We offer specialised phenotyping pipelines comprising state-of-the-art test assays monitoring disease related parameters. In-depth behavioural phenotyping supports the elucidation of the molecular and genetic basis of behavioural impairments that are relevant for human neuropsychiatric disorders such as anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, schizophrenia, autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s Disease.

    More information and the call application form is available here.
    Proposal submission to proposals(at)infrafrontier.eu by 15 November 2018.

    INFRAFRONTIER is the European Research Infrastructure for phenotyping and archiving of model mammalian genomes. The INFRAFRONTIER Research Infrastructure provides access to first-class tools and data for biomedical research, and thereby contributes to improving the understanding of gene function in human health and disease using the mouse model. The core services of INFRAFRONTIER comprise the systemic phenotyping of mouse mutants in the participating mouse clinics, and the archiving and distribution of mouse mutant lines by the European Mouse Mutant Archive (EMMA).

    During the course of the INFRAFRONTIER2020 project a total of 2 Trans-national Access calls supporting 15 specialised phenotyping projects will be published. One further call with a focus on functional immune-phenotyping screen by mass cytometry, and on induced secondary phenotyping screen under acute or more chronic inflammatory conditions will be released in spring 2019.

  • 2018-10-05

    Publication: PiGx: Reproducible genomics analysis pipelines with GNU Guix

    A paper on reproducible genomics analysis pipelines (PiGx) for the analysis of RNA-seq, ChIP-seq, Bisulfite-seq, and single-cell RNA-seq was recently published by the group of Altuna Akalin from the Berlin Institute of Medical Systems Biology at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine. Their work was partly supported by CORBEL. Congratulations to the authors!

  • 2018-09-07

    CORBEL 2nd Open Call - fourth submission round has started

    On 1 September 2018, the current submission round of the CORBEL 2nd Open Call for research projects started. Industrial and academic scientists are invited to submit their proposals to access technologies and services offered by the European biomedical research infrastructures.

    Please be aware that all interested researchers are required to talk about potential applications with the contact person(s) at the prospective service providers before submitting their project proposal.

    The current submission round will close on 31 October, 2018.

    For more information visit the Open Call webpages and find separate information on applications from industry.

  • 2018-09-07

    Registration open for workshop on “Best practices in Public-private collaborations”

    The CORBEL Innovation Helpdesk team in conjunction with the EATRIS Slovenia National Node and the University of Ljubljana is organizing a best practice workshop on the theme of public-private collaboration on 12-13 December 2018 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Registration is open - please find more information in the Event announcements.

  • 2018-09-07

    Legal templates available on the CORBEL Innovation Helpdesk portal

    One of the objectives of the CORBEL Innovation work package is to provide guidelines or templates for legal agreements applying to research collaborations and material or data transfer situations. Although such agreements require tailor-made approaches, content wise there are common segments to be captured which are provided in templates and guidelines (“tools”). Recently the CORBEL Innovation Helpdesk website has been updated with two documents which provide help:

    If you have questions or require further help please contact the Innovation Helpdesk.

  • 2018-08-24

    Publication: "Mind the Gap: From Tool to Knowledge Base"

    From ELSI to Knowledge Base - the latest paper published by CORBEL WP7 leader Michaela Th. Mayrhofer (BBMRI-ERIC) and Irene Schlünder from TMF e.V. provides an overview of the activities and results toward a comprehensive ELSI support for the biomedical research infrastructures. The work was co-funded by the Horizon 2020 projects ADOPT BBMRI-ERIC and CORBEL. The full text of the paper is available here.

  • 2018-07-27

    TRANSVAC: Open Call for Vaccine Development Services

    TRANSVAC is a collaborative infrastructure project funded by the European Commission (EC), designed to accelerate vaccine development by enhancing European vaccine research and training, and increase sustainability of EC vaccine projects by implementing a permanent research infrastructure for early vaccine development.

    The next deadline for applications for services is 15 August 2018. More information can be found here.

  • 2018-07-13

    Registration open for 5th MIUF Meeting

    Registration for the 5th CORBEL Medical Infrastructure/Users Forum (MIUF) meeting (15 October 2018, Paris) is now open. Please find more information in the Event announcements.

  • 2018-07-13

    CORBEL extended until May 2020

    In the course of a recent grant agreement amendment, the European Commission approved the cost neutral extension of CORBEL until the end of May 2020. The consortium is very grateful for the chance to extend and expand its efforts to support European biological and medical research by harmonising user access to biomedical research infrastructures, unifying data management, creating common ethical and legal services, and offering joint innovation support!

  • 2018-07-11

    CORBEL 2nd Open Call - third submission round has started

    During the second submission round of the CORBEL 2nd Open Call for research projects, several applications were received and are now being evaluated.

    Due to the rolling deadline of the Open Call, researchers are now encouraged to submit their proposals during the third submission round.

    Please be aware that all interested researchers are required to talk about potential applications with the contact person(s) at the prospective service providers before submitting their project proposal.

    The third submission round will close on 31 August, 2018.

    For more information visit the Open Call webpages.

  • 2018-05-14

    CORBEL 2nd Open Call - second submission round has started

    The first submission round of the CORBEL 2nd Open Call for research projects closed on April 30, 2018. The evaluation process has started and applicants will be notified about the outcome of the evaluation soon.

    As the Open Call has a rolling deadline collecting applications at the 1st of every 2nd month, researchers are now encouraged to submit their proposals during the second submission round.

    Please be aware that all interested researchers are required to talk about potential applications with the contact person(s) at the prospective service providers before submitting their project proposal.

    The second submission round will close on 30 June, 2018.

    For more information visit the Open Call webpages.

  • 2018-04-05

    CORBEL 2nd Open Call launched

    On 26 March CORBEL launched its 2nd Open Call for research projects.

    This call offers all academic and industrial scientists in Europe the unique chance to accelerate their research by using state-of-the-art technologies and services from more than 20 facilities from 10 different research infrastructures.

    The first submission round will close on 30 April, 2018.

    For more information visit the Open Call webpages.

  • 2018-02-19

    New Candidate genes for diabetes found in mouse phenotyping study

    Scientists at the Helmholtz Center Munich (HMGU) have identified a network of genes that could play a vital role in the development of metabolic diseases such as diabetes. The study for which INFRAFRONTIER provided the research infrastructure marks a substantial progress in the fight against diabetes: In order to identify candidate genes for the wide spread metabolic disease, the research team of the German Mouse Clinic (GMC) examined `knockout mice´ – each lacking a specific gene – for metabolic dysfunction.

    Cooperating with a worldwide group of colleagues in the International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium (IMPC), the scientists discovered a total of 974 genes whose loss had strong effects on glucose and lipid metabolism. The functions of 51 of these genes in the mouse were hitherto completely unknown. The genes were similar in their structure: Many of them had common genetic elements. Compared with genome data collected in humans, 23 genes appeared to play a role in human diabetes. Read more here

  • 2018-02-07

    Hot off press: Publication on sharing data from clinical trials

    As a follow-up to the consensus paper published end of 2017, ECRIN-ERIC released their publication on Classification of processes involved in sharing individual participant data from clinical trials.
    It is accessible from here.

  • 2017-12-18

    New publication: Sharing and reuse of individual participant data from clinical trials: principles and recommendations

    CORBEL WP3, lead by ECRIN-ERIC, published a consensus paper on data sharing of data from clinical trials.

    The publication can be accessed here.

  • 2017-12-13

    Report: IP issues in Open Science, pre-competitive Research and Open Innovation

    The report "IP issues in Open Science, pre-competitive Research and Open Innovation", produced by the CORBEL innovation specialists (CORBEL WP8), is now online available.

  • 2017-11-28

    Transnational Access Call "Precision mammalian model development"

    Main objective of this INFRAFRONTIER open call is to facilitate access for the wider biomedical research community to the unique infrastructure and scientific expertise of the participating INFRAFRONTIER partners, to deliver novel mouse lines that will advance knowledge of human disease and will be of widespread use in biomedical science. Recent advances in genome editing technology will be used to develop new mouse models of human disease.

    For more information visist the INFRAFRONTIER website.

  • 2017-11-22

    Catalogue of Services online!

    The CORBEL Catalogue of Services offers an overview on what kind of services (access to samples and technologies, data, tools, expertise etc.) can be accessed from the participating research infrastructures. Researchers from academia, clinics and industry working on a complex project often do not have access at their home institution to the cutting-edge technologies they would need to boost their research – especially these researchers can benefit from utilising a research infrastructure.

    The catalogue includes state-of-the art services from the fields of advanced imaging technologies, biobanking, clinical trial, databases, functional genomics, marine model organisms, microorganisms, pathogenic microorganisms, plant phenotyping, screening and medicinal chemistry, structural biology, systems biology and translational research. Searching the catalogue, researchers do not only obtain an overview on available services, they also receive information on access modes, costs and much more.
    Planning a complex research project it is also possible to use services from different research infrastructures subsequently. Examples of such service pipelines are given on the website.

  • 2017-10-30

    2nd CORBEL Annual General Meeting

    End of October the CORBEL consortium met for its 2nd AGM in Amsterdam (The Netherlands).
    All participants spent two exciting days, being updated on latest project outcomes and discussing the next steps for their workpackages.

  • 2017-10-25

    4th MIUF Meeting

    On October 24, 2017 the CORBEL Medical Infrastructure/Users Forum (MIUF) met in Amsterdam to continue the discussion on a better cooperation between medical research communities, medical RIs and funders.

  • 2017-10-04

    5th Instruct Internship programme 2017 open!

    Instruct's internships funding has two components: One component covers travel and subsistence expenditures for the fellow up to 6000 Euros. The second component is a regular Instruct Access Project associated to the internship, contemplating a maximum expenditure of 6000 Euros (equivalent to 4 access visits).
    For more information and the call submission guidelines please visit the Instruct website.

    The call closes November 11, 2017 at 17:00 CET.

  • 2017-08-28

    Join us at FEBS2017

    During the FEBS 2017 Early Bird Session 3 (September 12, 2017), the three European Research Infrastructures Euro-BioImaging, EU-OPENSCREEN and Instruct-ERIC will not only present how external scientists from Europe and beyond can use their technologies and services and how scientists can integrate them in their research projects, they will also inform the audience about the opportunities arising from CORBEL.

    Don't miss the session!

  • 2017-08-23

    Framework for Quality Management published

    Within CORBEL, the 13 RIs established a network of quality managers, in order to harmonise quality management approaches across the biological and medical RIs.

    Recently, a framework for quality management (QM) in the biomedical research infrastructures (BMS RIs) has been published, defining a core set of principles in QM all 13 RIs will be compliant with.
    The publication is accessible here.

  • 2017-08-07

    BBMRI-ERIC expands headquarter

    BBMRI-ERIC welcomes its new ELSI Helpdesk Coordinator as well as its
    new Engagement Officer.
    Both support the Central Executive Management Office.

  • 2017-07-24

    Launch of Instruct-ERIC

    At a Royal Society awards ceremony celebrating the prestigious new European Commission-approved status for structural biology Instruct Research Infrastructure, UK Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation Jo Johnson recognised the value and relevance of collaborative work between the UK and European scientists.
    Instruct is a pan-European partnership giving researchers vital access to advanced instrumentation and the necessary training. The equipment is typically very expensive and requires specific technical experience. Technology and infrastructure are at the heart of the revolution to connect atomic resolution of molecular structures with functionality at the cellular level, and technical advances are constantly pushing the science forward.

    The new legal status for Instruct transforms it into a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC), joining 16 others across Europe. As the second UK-hosted ERIC, Instruct will provide the European structural biology community with continued access to high-quality, stable and sustainable services. Over the past four decades, European researchers have played a pivotal role in developing increasingly sophisticated technologies including super-powerful cryo-electron microscopes. Instruct has been supported since its inception by the Medical Research Council, on behalf of the UK as the host country.
    Instruct provides access to some of the most sophisticated methods that allows researchers to generate images of molecules at near-atomic level, in far greater detail than was previously possible. This detail allows them to understand how the molecular machines in our bodies work and determine the building blocks of proteins, viruses and cells. Cryo-EM, one of the key technologies at the forefront of the structure revolution, is allowing researchers to better understand how diseases, like Alzheimer’s disease, affect the brain, and how specific molecules involved in causing disease might be targeted with drugs or vaccines.
    Minister Jo Johnson was able to announce at the event new multi-million pound funding for further cryo-EM facilities in UK, some of which will be available through the Instruct Centre UK, located in Oxford and the Harwell Research Campus. This investment combined with the new status of Instruct-ERIC, will enable the best and brightest minds across Europe to continue to share knowledge and state-of-the-art equipment, to advance discovery science and improve human health.
    Professor David Stuart, Director of Instruct-ERIC and MRC Professor at the University of Oxford, said: “Continued stability for partnerships across Europe is invaluable at this critical and exciting time for structural biology. International collaboration has always been important for structural biology as we need the collective knowledge and skills of chemists, physicists, computer scientists and biologists to develop the technology, before we can advance the science. Today’s announcements represent a welcome commitment to strengthening infrastructure, research collaborations and enabling the brightest minds to work together across borders.”
    Dr Nathan Richardson, MRC Head of Molecular and Cellular Medicine and Chair of Instruct-ERIC Council, said: “We’re delighted to be able to provide extra support, complementary to other investments, enabling access for even more researchers to cutting-edge technology at a crucial time, allowing them to tackle the biological questions that will help advance human health.”

    For more information about Instruct-ERIC, please visit their website.

  • 2017-07-05

    BBMRI-ERIC announces new Director General

    The BBMRI-ERIC Assembly of Members recently appointed Erik Steinfelder as the new Director General of BBMRI-ERIC. He will begin this position on 1st August 2017, succeeding Professor Jan-Eric Litton.
    For detailed information please visit the BBMRI website.

  • 2017-07-04

    Instruct-ERIC decision adopted

    The European Commission adopted the Instruct-ERIC decision on the 4th July 2017; Instruct is the 17th ERIC to be adopted. The Instruct-ERIC award ceremony takes place July 18, 2017.
    For more information please visit their website.

  • 2017-06-29

    Innovation by Open Access Meeting - presentations online now!

    Co-organised by the CORBEL partners Medical University of Graz and EATRIS-ERIC, this meeting provided useful indications on how Research Infrastructures (RIs) can boost innovation. After short presentations from the RIs, introducing themselves, various speakers from European Commission, Industry and other European organisations explored the theme of Open Innovation with particular emphasis on pre-competitive research collaboration models.
    After a lively panel discussion with representatives from industry, EFPIA and EMA, the main conclusions of this meeting can be summarized as follows:
    - pre-competitive, open access models can be very valuable as instruments for innovation
    - issues such as intellectual property (IP) rights have to be adequately addressed already in the
      planning
    - clear rules on IP issues are particularly important to protect for small and medium-sized
      enterprises (SMEs).

    All presentations given at the meeting are online available.

  • 2017-06-23

    ERINHA and EMPHASIS join CORBEL

    In its last meeting, the CORBEL Executive Board approved that ERINHA and EMPHASIS join the CORBEL consortium.
    With both RIs on board, CORBEL now unites all 13 bio-medical sciences RIs of the ESFRI roadmap.

    The CORBEL consortium is looking forward to fruitful cooperations!

     

    ***

    ERINHA 

    ERINHA Research infrastructure, currently under preparatory phase, enters into implementation phase from July 2017. Since then, ERINHA will operate under AISBL legal statutes.
    ERINHA has been conceived to reinforce European research capacities in the field of study of highly infectious emerging and re-emerging diseases bringing together European high containment laboratories and complementary facilities. ERINHA aims to provide a coordinated transnational access to its state-of-the-art BSL4 and complementary member research capabilities and expertise to relevant scientists from academia and industry. It will contribute to more efficient national, European and global preparedness to outbreaks and enhance European capacities in the field of pathogenic agents to prevent and respond to the spread of epidemics with high impact on health, economy and society.

     

    EMPHASIS 

    EMPHASIS aims at the development of an integrated European phenotyping infrastructure able to test genotypes in current and future agro-climatic scenarios and provide services such as access to diverse facilities under controlled and field conditions. An integral part of the EMPHASIS strategy is the link of data acquisition to European data management approaches as well as to crop models simulating performance in current and future climatic scenarios. Additionally, EMPHASIS will develop, evaluate and disseminate novel technologies that can be used beyond plant sciences and, provide new opportunities to European stakeholders from academia and industry.

  • 2017-06-06

    Webinar "User Experience Design for more user-friendly applications"

    The next event in the CORBEL webinar series takes place June 27, 2017 at 15:30 CET. Click here for more information and registration!

  • 2017-05-22

    REGISTER NOW: Innovation by Open Access Meeting

    "How European Biological and Medical Sciences Research Infrastructures boost Innovation by Open Access" - this question is addressed during a workshop organised by WP8, taking place June 20, 2017 in Brussels.
    Participation is free of charge, but participants have to register.
    For detailed information about this meeting clicke here.

  • 2017-04-10

    Innovation Helpdesk: new guidelines online!

    The CORBEL Innovation Office Helpdesk, intended to assist Research Infrastructures with collaboration with industry and technology transfer, made available a set of new documents:

    - Basic Aspects for Budgeting
    - Compendium on Elements of Collaboration and Licensing Agreements
    - Guidelines for Technology Transfer and Partnering
    - Good Negotiating Practice
    - Features of Intellectual Property
    - Approaches to Life Science Evaluation

    Enjoy reading!

  • 2017-03-20

    EXTENDEND DEADLINE: CORBEL staff exchanges: Call for Hosts 2017

    The CORBEL consortium launched its call for hosts for its staff exchanges program. This program is for operational staff from the Research Infrastructures participating in CORBEL to develop operational expertise in four areas – data management, service provision, innovation and ethics – by making short knowledge-exchange visits to other Research Infrastructures (RIs) that are noted for their excellence in the same area. The staff exchanges form an integral part of CORBEL’s WP9 tasks.
    More information here.

  • 2017-03-07

    Results of the MIUF Survey

    Within WP3 a questionnaire was created to collect the needs and expectations of medical research communities and overall users regarding the services offered by research infrastructures.
    The responses have been collected and analysed and will be used as input to gather recommendations for continuous improvement and development of new, transversal services.

    The full report can be downloaded here.

  • 2017-01-31

    Launch of the Paediatric Clinical Research Infrastructure Network (PedCRIN)

    Towards better medicines for children: PedCRIN project builds research infrastructure  

    The European Clinical Research Infrastructure Network (ECRIN), partner RI of CORBEL,
    has announced the launch of the Paediatric Clinical Research Infrastructure Network (PedCRIN).  
    The three-year project brings together ECRIN and the founding partners of the European Paediatric Clinical Trial Research Infrastructure (EPCT-RI) to develop capacity for the management of multinational paediatric clinical trials.  

    Children represent 20% of the European population and their health is a major societal challenge for Europe and the world, requiring the development of evidence-based paediatric medicines and treatment strategies. Yet, there is a current lack of data specific to neonates, infants and children; over 50% of the medicines used in these groups have not been tested on them specifically, but rather, on adults. This is problematic as neonates/infants/children and adults differ widely in many ways, from their physiology to their metabolic pathways.  

    It is thus important to conduct paediatric trials to increase the knowledge base to develop appropriate, safe and effective health interventions for neonates, infants and children. However, there are various challenges to paediatric studies including dosage and form, recruitment, and many ethical concerns (informed consent, exposure to molecules while still developing, etc.). Therefore, the management of paediatric trials requires the highest level of ethical standards and scientific rigour.
    Through PedCRIN, ECRIN aims to address the above challenges to paediatric trials. This will be achieved by bridging paediatricians and other partners across Europe (and internationally) to combine resources and expertise to conduct and manage robust studies, while minimising risk and protecting the child participants.  
    The three-year PedCRIN project involves five work packages, including project coordination and implementation; definition of the PedCRIN business strategy and governance structure; development of tools specific for paediatric and neonatal trials (trial methodology and (patient-centred) outcome measures, adverse event reporting, bio-sample management, ethical and regulatory database, monitoring, quality and certification); provision of operational support to selected pilot trials, which will be coordinated by ECRIN with the support of national paediatric coordinators hosted by paediatric networks (that currently exist or are being set-up); and communication targeting user communities (including industry partners) and policymakers, and aiming to empower patients and parents.   ‘Through PedCRIN, we hope to develop the necessary tools and capacity to enhance the high quality and ethical standards of multinational paediatric clinical trials. These tools will be tested through the project, refined, and then shared by the European and international scientific community, ensuring that the project gains become sustainable’, said Jacques Demotes, Director General of ECRIN.
    PedCRIN has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme (INFRADEV-3 call) under grant agreement number 731046.  

    Contacts:
    Sabrina Gaber, Communications Officer, ECRIN sabrina.gaber@ecrin.org; +33 1 80 05 86 23
    Begonya Nafria, Patient Advocacy Manager bnafria@sjdhospitalbarcelona.org; + 34 93 600 97 67 ext. 2765
    Joana Claverol Torres, Clinical Research Unit Manager jclaverol@fsjd.org; + 34 93 600 97 33 ext. 70035

  • 2017-01-23

    INFRAFRONTIER Open Call open!

    INFRAFRONTIER opened their call on Model development and systemic phenotyping

    Main objective of the INFRAFRONTIER open call is to facilitate access for the wider biomedical research community to the unique infrastructure and scientific expertise of the participating mouse clinics. Mouse mutant lines can be tested through a broad based primary phenotyping pipeline in all the major adult organ systems and most areas of major human disease. Access will be granted on the basis of scientific excellence and supports the development and in depth characterisation of new mouse models for investigating gene function and human pathophysiology. INFRAFRONTIER will provide open access to all newly developed disease models and phenotyping data.

    Deadline for submission of propsoals: 15 February 2017

    For more information click here.

  • 2017-01-23

    RItrain: Calls for Applications for Staff Exchange

    The purpose of RItrain Staff Exchanges is for managerial staff from European Research Infrastructures to learn from managerial and leadership best practices in areas that are new to them, or that they feel their research infrastructure needs to develop specific expertise in, by making exchange visits to research infrastructures that are noted for their excellence in selected areas.

    Update: Please note that the deadline for submission of applications to the “Stakeholder Management and Community Building” module was extended to January 31, 2017!

  • 2017-01-23

    2nd ENVRIplus call for proposals for multi-disciplinary access to Environmental Research Infrastructures open!

    ENVRIplus (Environmental Research Infrastructures providing shared solutions for Science and Society) is a European Horizon 2020 project bringing together Environmental and Earth System Research Infrastructures, projects and networks together with technical specialist partners to create a more coherent, interdisciplinary and interoperable cluster of Environmental Research Infrastructures across Europe.

    ENVRIplus offers opportunities for interdisciplinary research via free-of-charge, hands-on access to the following European research facilities involved in cross-cutting areas covering the atmospheric, biosphere, marine, and solid earth domain:

    • SMEAR II – Hyytiälä (Finland)
    • OSUR – La Réunion (France)
    • ETNA INGV – Catania (Italy)
    • SOERE-ACBB – Lusignan (France)

    Deadline for submission of applications is February 24, 2017.

    For more information please visit the ENVRIplus website.

  • 2017-01-19

    CORBEL Innovation Office @ BioFIT conference

    On 01 December 2016, Kees de Ruig (EATRIS and CORBEL’s Innovation Office) was part of a panel discussion at the BioFIT conference in Lille with the titel “How can deal-making process be accelerated by standardised contracts and conditions?” Other panelists were Lorraine Sautter (Inserm) and Paul Hermant (Bird & Bird) and the session was chaired by Nicolas Carboni (Conectus).

    From the session it was clear that many Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) struggle with contracting with external parties. It is not always easy to negotiate terms and conditions, and in order to ensure consistency as well as to improve quality and reduce timelines, the use of templates is highly recommended. Especially in case multiple projects are conducted with different partners in consortia, the use of a Master Research Collaboration Agreement is very instrumental.
    The good news is that TTO’s don’t need to reinvent the wheel; many resources are available including the Lambert template agreements. Additionally, the Innovation Office of CORBEL provides templates and guidance, as well as ad hoc consultancy. The innovation office can be reached at innovation [at] corbel-project.eu; more information can be found on the website.

  • 2016-12-05

    CORBEL Open Call closed

    The 1st CORBEL Open Call is closed.

    Thank you for the great interest!

     

    Submitted proposals will be evaluated now and applicants will be contacted directly by the Open Call management team.

  • 2016-10-05

    Launch of the CORBEL Open Call

    On 5 October CORBEL launched its 1st Open Call for research projects.

    This call offers all academic and industrial scientists in Europe the unique chance to accelerate their research by using state-of-the-art technologies and services from more than 80 service providers.

    Project application can be submitted until 30 November.

    For more information visit the Open Call webpages.

  • 2016-07-04

    CORBEL survey on user needs - STILL OPEN

    RIs play a pivotal role in the advancement of knowledge and technology, and represent a powerful instrument to promote, facilitate and enhance regional, national and transnational collaboration through shared access to facilities. Close collaboration with medical research communities is needed to ensure appropriate development of tools and services, and to ensure that researchers across Europe have open access to these resources, facilities, services and data.

    Through this questionnaire, the BMS RIs aim to capture the needs of research communities, in order to foster collaboration with research infrastructures across Europe and to develop specific or common services. As a potential RI user, your input in this questionnaire is extremely helpful.

    Please note that the survey (click HERE to access) will be closed on Monday, July 25, 2016.

  • 2016-06-20

    CORBEL partner Euro-BioImaging starting Interim Operation

    Euro-BioImaging (EuBI) is the European research infrastructure for biological and medical imaging. Recently, EuBI started its Interim Operation, i.e. its services are now open for researchers across Europe.

    European life science researchers now have the possibility to use state-of-the-art imaging technologies, which they do not find at their home institutions or among their collaboration partners.

    For more information please visit the Euro-BioImaging website.

  • 2016-06-02

    CORBEL survey on ELSI support

    Where do you get support with ELSI questions around data and biosamples?

    This questionnaire aims to assess if the tools and platforms you use in relation to your ethical, legal and societal issues are informative for your daily work and which questions are yet to be answered.

     

    To offer the right service, we need your insight, please take the effort and respond by June 26, 2016.

     

    UPDATE: The survey has been closed. 

  • 2016-04-25

    Europe Biobank Week

    CORBEL partner BBMRI-ERIC, together with ESBB (the European, Middle Eastern & African Society for Biopreservation & Biobanking), organises the first Europe Biobank Week taking place September 13-16, 2016 in Vienna (Austria).
    The Europe Biobank Week is the new platform for a strong debate and collaboration on activities related to biobanking and biopreservation of samples and data for R&D. The focus of this first Biobank Week is on "Biobanking for Health Innovation".

    More information about the Europe Biobank Week can be obtained from its website.

  • 2016-04-14

    Launch of the CORBEL Innovation Office

    Today we are pleased to announce the launch of the CORBEL Innovation Office, intended to provide advice and assistance to streamline research collaboration among Europe’s BioMedical Research Infrastructures (RIs) and the industry.

    The CORBEL Innovation Office aims to increase the utilization of research data and resources through enhanced collaboration and reduced length of matching and negotiation processes.

    At the CORBEL Innovation Office, a team of experienced business developers and legal experts will be available to answer questions and give advice to CORBEL RIs on data sharing, partnering and deal making, with a special focus on public-private partnerships.

    In addition, the Help Desk will share best practices from the RIs and make available online guidelines and template agreements for frequently occurring situations within public-private collaborations.

    The service will soon evolve to include novel collaboration models such as Open Innovation and Expert Centres for sharing data and resources in the pre-competitive phase.

    The Innovation Office team will work closely with related CORBEL work packages in the fields of joint user access (WP5), regulatory and ethical aspects (WP7) and education and training (WP9).

  • 2016-03-10

    Launch of ESFRI Roadmap 2016

    On March 10, 2016, the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) presented the 2016 ESFRI Roadmap on Research Infrastructures during a one-day conference in Amsterdam.

    All eleven research infrastructures participating in CORBEL are placed on the roadmap: BBMRI, EATRIS, ECRIN, ELIXIR, INFRAFRONTIER and INSTRUCT are labelled as ESFRI landmarks while EMBRC, EU-OPENSCREEN, Euro-BioImaging, ISBE and MIRRI listed as ESFRI projects on their way to full operability.

  • 2016-03-08

    4th ERIC Networking Meeting

    The 4th ERIC Networking Meeting is co-organised by EATRIS-ERIC and takes place March 8-9, 2016 in Amsterdam.

    For details please visit the EATRIS website.

  • 2015-11-20

    CORBEL Kick-Off Meeting

    On November 19, 2015 the official CORBEL Kick-Off Meeting took place, hosted by ELIXIR at the Wellcome Trust Centre in Hinxton (UK).

    CORBEL brings together 11 ESFRI BMS biological and medical research infrastructures with the objective to establish common approaches across these infrastructures for user access, data management, ELSI (ethical, legal and societal implications) and innovation.

    A significant proportion of the project is dedicated to support advanced user projects that cover the full range of biomedical research – from the fundamental understanding of molecular mechanisms to the outcome from clinical trials. By supporting several pilot projects from different user communities that need access to more than one infrastructure, CORBEL will map and address bottlenecks in the accessing and combining research infrastructure services. The envisaged framework of shared services will overcome these bottlenecks and foster research and development in the life-sciences.

    For 2016, a priority will be to link CORBEL’s data management efforts with other standardisation efforts globally. A second priority will be to bring together ELSI approaches across research infrastructures. Furthermore, several pilot projects will be identified and initiated.

    More general information about CORBEL as well as details on the planned pilot projects can be obtained from this newly launched website or by following the CORBEL Twitter account (@CORBEL_eu; #lifescienceservices).

  • 2015-09-01

    CORBEL Project start

    Today the CORBEL cluster projects starts!

    The main objective of the project is to establish a collaborative and sustainable framework of shared services between the ESFRI BioMedical Sciences research infrastructures (BMS RI).

    Stay tuned for updates!