Success Stories

"CORBEL aims to establish and support a new model for biological and medical research in Europe by harmonising user access, unifying data management, creating common ethical and legal services, and offering joint innovation support" - what does that mean in practice?

Learn from our Success Stories how we were able to help other researchers - stay tuned for more stories and subscribe to our newsletter to be informed!

    • User Story

    Morphology and structure of chondrocytes and their association with mineralizing tissues in shark and ray cartilage

    Cartilage performs vital functions in the skeletons of vertebrate animals, forming the embryonic scaffold for patterning adult bone, contour fillers in noses and ears, and bearing surfaces in joints. Critical to cartilage function are its embedded cells (chondrocytes), which secrete ...
    • User Story

    Screening for active compounds against acute myeloid leukemia

    Prof. Maria Paola Martelli focuses her research on acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with the aim to translate her findings into novel diagnostic tools and therapies. AML affects the maturation of myeloid blood cells leading to accumulation of abnormal cells and ultimately to bone marrow failure.
    • User Story

    Establishing high-throughput methods to study ‘mini-guts’

    CORBEL user Jenny Ostrop from the Centre of Molecular Inflammation Research at NTNU in Trondheim, is using organoids - ‘mini-guts’ that form characteristic crypts and villi - to study the intestinal epithelium. Her scientific interest lies in the differentiation of stem cells into the diverse epithelial cell lineages.
    • User Story

    Integrating EU-wide cardiovascular research datasets

    Dr. Adriano Barbosa’s CORBEL project aims to extend the impact of large population studies by identifying and collecting additional European CVD datasets that could be analysed in parallel in order to validate insights observed in the UK Biobank on an independent dataset.

    • Interview

    Live cell imaging to profile microglia in health and disease

    Valérie Petegnief, PhD, from the Institute for Biomedical Research of Barcelona talks about her experience as a user of the CORBEL Open Call. What were the reasons for her to apply and how did her research benefit from accessing two different research infrastructures?
    • Interview

    Improving the therapy of erectile dysfunction

    Dr. Luca De Toni from the University of Padua talks about his experience as a user of the CORBEL Open Call. What were the reasons for him to apply and how did his research benefit from accessing two different research infrastructures?
    • User Story

    Revealing the morphological plasticity of a cell in planktonic symbioses

    The goal of Dr. Johan Decelle's project is to unveil the structural architecture of the symbiotic cells involved in planktonic symbioses. Access to research infrastructures via CORBEL allowed him to collect his study material and to access high-end imaging technologies.
    • User Story

    Investigating Toxin-Antitoxin systems in lactic acid bacteria

    With the use of CORBEL facilities, Camilla and the research group of Parma University aim to identify Toxin-Antitoxin systems in wild isolates of Lactobacillus strains, and subsequently characterize their mode of action.
    • Interview

    Bringing saliva into health research

    Dr. Maria Correia from the research lab Saliva Tec (Portugal) talks about her experience as a user of the CORBEL Open Call. Why did she apply to this call and what are the benefits for her research accessing three different research infrastructures?
    • Interview

    Deciphering an intracellular enzyme

    Prof. Anastassis Perrakis from the Netherland Cancer Institute talks about his experience as a user of the CORBEL Open Call. Why did he apply to this call and what are his experiences accessing two different research infrastructures?
    • Interview

    On the way to new anti-cancer therapies

    Dr. Alexey Koval from the University of Lausanne talks about his experience as a user of the CORBEL Open Call. Why did he apply to this call and what are his experiences accessing two different research infrastructures?
    • User Story

    Greetings from the Sea – a CORBEL Open Call user reports about her first visit

    Prof. Simona Candiani's scientific interest addresses certain genes that might play an important role in evolutionary neural development, using amphioxus as a model system. CORBEL support enabled her to work with amphioxus adults and to develop new technical skills by expert training at the research infrastructure facilities.
    • Staff Programme

    User relationship management

    This Staff Exchange focused on the interactions with users and user relationship management related to the CORBEL services and their target user community.
    • Publication

    A framework for quality management in the biomedical research infrastructures

    The proper use of verified reference materials, standard operation protocols, study designs and data analysis and data storage is crucial to increase the quality of biomedical research and reduce the waste of resources. The biomedical research infrastructures (BMS RIs) therefore all apply quality management systems that ensure that the resources and services that they offer to the European biomedical research community are of highest quality. Within the CORBEL framework, the BMS RIs have published a working paper describing a core set of eight principles on quality management recognised by all BMS RIs.
    • Staff Programme

    INSTRUCT ARIA introduction and adaptations for EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC

    In CORBEL, user access is managed with the online access management system ARIA, which was developed by INSTRUCT ERIC. To learn more about how this administration system can be customised to the needs of EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC, Katja Herzog visited the INSTRUCT central office.
    • Support

    Assistance from the CORBEL Innovation Helpdesk

    An SME company developing a novel product in the field of alleviating addiction requested assistance in identifying expertise centres to help clarify the mechanism of action of its investigational new drug substance and possibly enable smartly designed translational studies to establish in vivo efficacy.
    A report was prepared listing a selection of academic groups of potential technical and clinical relevance. The SME studied this report of matching partners and is engaged in follow up contact with one of them to explore (under confidentiality) a potential collaboration.
    • Staff Programme

    Ethical and legal framework for data sharing and reuse

    This Staff Exchange provided a comprehensive overview of the legal, ethical and practical framework related to data protection and data sharing with a particular focus to clinical research and sensitive data.