European Life Science Research Infrastructures
What do LS RIs offer the life science community?
The 13 European Life Science Research Infrastructures (LS RIs) have the mission to support cutting-edge science by offering access to their resources and services to European scientists from academia and industry.
Resources and services can simply be consultation, access to experts, but also access to data and biological samples, use of data analysis tools, access to facilities (e.g. highly specialised microscopes) plus support from technicians and much more.
Some of these services are even free to use for institutions location in the RI's member states.
The Catalogue of Services, which has been developed within the CORBEL project, is the first tool to list the main services of all LS RIs at a glance and it aims to facilitate the utilisation of RI services by researchers from all over the world. The Catalogue of Services as displayed below aims to provide you a basic overview on existing services within distinct thematic fields.
You can either use the Catalogue of Services to identify a single RI to help you with your work or you can create a service pipeline, i.e. using several RIs simultaneously.
What’s your need?
Please select…
Samples
Data & Databases
Technologies & Facilities
- accreditated/certified facilities (ISO certified, GLP, GMP, GCP)
- adaptation / development of assays (compounds etc.)
- adaptation / development of assays (human/non-human samples)
- high-throughput screening
- imaging (biological)
- imaging (medical)
- isolation / cultivation / characterisation of microorganisms
- -omics technology platforms
- plant phenotyping technologies/facilities
- production of high quality protein samples
- structural biology technologies/software
Models & Tools
Expertise & Support
- biomarker validation
- biosecurity / biosafety (incl. regulatory) issues
- data management expertise
- development of project towards a medical application
- ethical / legal issues, informed consent
- innovation management support
- mouse model generation, phenotyping and cryopreservation
- multinational clinical trial (establishment / management / monitoring)
- outbreak / emergency response / epidemiology
- support to submit a project proposal
- systems biology expertise
- training courses
- The following RIs offer complementary services:
EATRIS-ERIC
Contact person(s): Florence Bietrix
EATRIS is the European infrastructure for translational medicine. The infrastructure brings together resources and services for research communities to translate scientific discoveries into benefits for patients.
Services provided
Services offered by EATRIS include
- support funding applications (Identification of partners for consortium building, assessment of the project plan's impact and innovation potential)
- translational research facilities and expertise for development of novel biomarkers, diagnostics and therapeutics
- molecular, functional & hybrid imaging technologies, preclinical models, samples, patient cohorts, GMP manufacturing
- regulatory and Health Technology Assessment (HTA) expertise
- advice on intellectual property issues and industry partnering strategy (innovation management)
Costs
Costs are calculated on a case by case basis depending on the service required; some services can also be provided as part of funding proposals with EATRIS joining consortia as partner or subcontractor.
For further information please contact us.
Access modes
Services performed can be offered either centrally by the coordination and support team based in Amsterdam or remotely by the EATRIS institutions.
Why work with us
Translating novel biology insights into effective interventions or medical applications is a highly complex process. It requires significant dedicated expertise, facilities and resources. We believe in your medical innovation and we want to support you by bringing together the multi-disciplinary expertise and infrastructure required for optimising your translational trajectory. Working with EATRIS gives greater confidence in the translational feasibility of your project and its impact.
Countries involved
FR, NL, CZ, HR, SE, NO, FI, IT, ES, SI, LU, LV, PO, BG
Services contact
Contact person(s): Florence Bietrix
About
EATRIS is the European infrastructure for translational medicine. The infrastructure brings together resources and services for research communities to translate scientific discoveries into benefits for patients.
EATRIS provides access to a vast array of pre-clinical and clinical expertise and facilities that are available within 115+ top-tier academic centres across Europe. The infrastructure focuses on improving and optimising preclinical and early clinical development of drugs, vaccines and diagnostics, and overcome barriers to health innovation.
The research infrastructure offers a broad range of research services for both academia and industry across various research fields. In addition, EATRIS works with public funding agencies, charities and policymakers with tailored actions to help improve the translational research and innovation ecosystem.
ECRIN-ERIC
Contact person(s): European Correspondent in your country, Christine Kubiak
ECRIN is a pan-European distributed infrastructure that links scientific partners across Europe to facilitate multinational clinical research. ECRIN provides sponsors and investigators with support for the development and implementation of multinational clinical trials.
Services provided
Services offered by ECRIN include
- information and advice for funding applications and preparation of multinational clinical trials (methodology, operational aspects, regulatory, ethics, contracting...)
- trial management operations (interaction with competent authorities & ethics committees, project management, monitoring, vigilance, data management)
- clinical trial tools (outcome measures, regulatory database, site locations, risk-based monitoring)
- data centre certification program (audits European, non-commercial data centres using ECRIN IT/DM standards, to confirm their ability to provide compliant, effective, and efficient data management services for controlled clinical trials)
Costs
Information and advice are free for ECRIN members. The cost of trial management services depends on the type of service requested. Data centre certification costs depend on the type of country membership.
Access modes
Users submit their proposal or request to ECRIN office; the access mode depends on proposal and needs. There are annual calls for data centre certification.
Why work with us
Difficulties in locating clinical trials units, fulfilling local legal, regulatory and ethical requirements, and coordinating multi-country clinical trial management deter many researchers from attempting multinational clinical trials. This means that most independent clinical trials are conducted in single centres, or multiple centres within one country. ECRIN provides a path through Europe's fragmented health and legal systems with its pan-European infrastructure that is designed to support multinational clinical research and unlock access to patients and medical expertise.
Countries involved
FR, DE, HU, IT, NO, ES, PT, CZ, IE
Observer: CH, SK, PL
Services contact
Contact person(s): European Correspondent in your country, Christine Kubiak
About
Since its creation in 2004, ECRIN has been working to help researchers overcome the challenges inherent to multinational clinical trials in Europe.
ECRIN focuses on academic-sponsored multinational clinical trials as well as clinical trials initiated by biotech and medical device small and medium enterprises (SMEs). It provides support to sponsors and investigator-initiated trials and helps them navigate Europe’s fragmented health and legal systems. Multi-country clinical trials mean greater access to patients, resources, and expertise, and, in turn, faster and potentially more robust results.
ECRIN’s organisational model is based on country membership. Each country has a European Correspondent, who manages the trial portfolio and coordinates with the national scientific hub (i.e. network of clinical trial units, CTUs) with support from the Paris-based Core Team.
ECRIN provides support for the preparation of multinational clinical trials (e.g. trial logistics, funding applications), the validation of study protocols (scientific and logistical review), and trial management (coordination, submissions to competent authorities and ethics committees; monitoring; adverse event reporting; data management). In support of these activities, it develops and maintains freely accessible tools such as databases on regulatory and ethical requirements, outcome measures, and risk-based monitoring.
ECRIN currently provides consultancy and management services to more than 40 trials, with an average of seven countries per trial.
In addition, ECRIN contributes to capacity building projects aiming to establish shared services in biomedical areas and to foster international cooperation in non-commercial trials.
EMPHASIS
Contact person(s): Dr. Roland Pieruschka, Dr. Sven Fahrner
EMPHASIS is a pan-European, distributed plant phenotyping infrastructure. EMPHASIS will focus on developing and enabling access to plant phenotyping infrastructure and provision of services essential for the analysis of crop performance with respect to structure, function, quality and interaction with the environment. It will thus support the exploitation of crop genetic diversity required for the enhancement of plant productivity and progress in plant breeding.
Services provided
In cooperation with EPPN2020, EMPHASIS offers access to plant phenotyping infrastructures, which includes
- high-throughput facilities
- lean field facilities
- intensive field facilities
- assay development
- data management
Further services are currently under development and will be implemented in its operational phase.
Costs
The access provided currently via EPPN2020 is free of charge for selected user-groups, based on a simple application procedure and includes the logistical, technological and scientific support as well as specific training required to successfully complete the approved Transnational Access project.
For further information please contact us.
Access modes
European-wide access to plant phenotyping infrastructures is currently under development in our partner project EPPN2020 and is provided via its homepage.
Access will be accordingly provided by EMPHASIS once it reaches its operational phase.
Why work with us
EPPN2020 provides transnational access to plant phenotyping infrastructure as a basis for novel scientific approaches to quantitative plant assessment in high throughput. The installations represent a diverse set of facilities for plant phenotyping in Europe with focus on: i) non-invasive high-throughput phenotyping under controlled conditions, ii) destructive sampling aiming at assessing underlying traits helping to understand the genetic variability of different plant processes, iii) controlled field facilities allowing users to control rainfall and/or the concentration of air CO2 together with high-definition, non-invasive sensors. Transnational access will be available based on a simple and transparent access procedure.
Countries involved
Preparatory Phase of the project: BE, FR, IT, NL, UK, DE
Services contact
Contact person(s): Dr. Roland Pieruschka, Dr. Sven Fahrner
About
EMPHASIS is a pan-European distributed plant phenotyping infrastructure project. EMPHASIS will focus on developing and enabling access to plant phenotyping infrastructure and provision of services, essential for the analysis of crop performance with respect to structure, function, quality and interaction with the environment. It will thus support the exploitation of crop genetic diversity required for the enhancement of plant productivity and progress in plant breeding.
Plant derived products are at the centre of grand challenges posed by increasing requirements for food, feed and bio-based raw materials. Integrating approaches across all scales from molecular to field applications are necessary to develop sustainable plant production with higher yield and at the same time using limited resources. While significant progress has been made in molecular and genetic approaches in recent years, the quantitative analysis of plant performance has become the major bottleneck. The challenge is to address multi-scale phenotyping for analysing genotype performance under diverse environmental conditions and quantify the diversity of traits contributing to performance, i.e. plant architecture, major functions, yield components and quality. Improvement of plant performance under changing climates requires the use of different categories of infrastructure combined with a coordinated infrastructure for storing and analysing data, and platforms for plant/crop modelling associated with phenotyping platforms.
Thus, plant phenotyping focuses on development and implementation of non-invasive technology, which can be used beyond plant sciences in disciplines such as image analysis, remote sensing or automation engineering. Additionally, plant phenotyping produces a number of data relevant for basic understanding in life sciences and practical breeding.
EU-OPENSCREEN
Contact person(s): Project Manager: Dr. Tanja Miletic
EU-OPENSCREEN integrates high-capacity screening platforms throughout Europe, which jointly use a rationally selected compound collection, comprising up to 140.000 commercial and proprietary compounds collected from European chemists. EU-OPENSCREEN offers to researchers from academic institutions, SMEs and industrial organisations open access to its shared resources.
EU-OPENSCREEN will collaboratively develop novel molecular tool compounds with external users from various disciplines of the life sciences.
Services provided
Services provided by EU-OPENSCREEN include
- high-throughput compound/ drug screening (HTS): HTS of an assay against the EU-OPENSCREEN chemical collection (> 100,000 compounds); in silico profiling; hit selection; confirmatory screening; basic counter screening; basic SAR based on screening data; QC of confirmed hits
- access to a unique European compound collection: EU-OPENSCREEN chemical collection (> 100,000 compounds)
- assay adaption: This assay adaptation process will involve a strong emphasis on quality, including: quality control of reagents; (patho-)physiological relevance; pharmacological consistency; robustness; minimised variability; and tracking of statistical descriptors (e.g. signal to background and the Z’ factor)
- chemical optimization and profiling of preliminary ‘hits’
- bioprofiling of donated compounds: All compounds donated by the user which enter the EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC compound collection are characterised and annotated for basic physico-chemical (e.g. identity, solubility, light absorbance and fluorescence) and essential to know biological properties (cytotoxicity, antibiotic, antifungal etc.) by testing in a standard panel of assays.
- provision of standardised data: All data generated through QC/bioprofiling and screening activities will be published in EU-OPENSCREEN’s open-access database with an optional ‘grace’ period (i.e. delayed publication of data). Large-scale open-access data provide the basis for computational data integration to obtain a systematic view, allow for prediction of drug-target interactions and networks as well as of adverse effects and drug combinations. The access to the EU-OPENSCREEN database will utilize the facilities of ChEMBL.
- training and education activities
Costs
A screening project at a typical EU-OPENSCREEN screening site will cost 50-250k €, strongly depending on the number of screened substances and the maturity/ complexity of the assay.
A compound replenishment fee structure applies to all projects using the EU-OPENSCREEN compound collection and users from countries which are members of the EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC will receive a discount on this cost.
For further information please contact us.
Access modes
Users are requested to submit project proposal to the EU-OPENSCREEN office. Depending on the project requirements, the RI can be assessed remotely or on-site.
Why work with us
The majority of scientists in Europe do not have access to suitable technology platforms and compound collections, which are generally expensive to purchase, operate and maintain. As a large-scale research infrastructure (RI) with an ‘open’ pre-competitive character, EU-OPENSCREEN will cost-effectively overcome this limitation by: involving and providing access to Europe’s leading screening platforms and chemistry groups; offering a jointly used rationally designed compound collection; and operating an open-access bioactivity database which will be accessible on a global basis. EU-OPENSCREEN offers to support you through grant application processes and beyond for funding involving screening projects.
Countries involved
CZ, FI, DE, LV, NO, PO, ES, DK
Services contact
Contact person(s): Project Manager: Dr. Tanja Miletic
About
Chemical Biology is a new interdisciplinary research field which studies the effects of chemical compounds on biological systems. The primary objective of EU-OPENSCREEN is to offer access to a distributed Chemical Biology research infrastructure which meets the needs of scientists seeking a better understanding on how fundamental molecular processes act to govern biological function at the organismal, tissue, cellular and pathway levels by applying small chemical compounds.
Using a well-founded collaborative working model, infrastructure users and EU-OPENSCREEN teams will identify and develop novel small chemical compounds which elicit specific biological responses on organisms, cells or cellular components. These bioactive compounds are identified by means of screening large collections of >100,000 molecules, in an automated process, using robotics-based high-throughput screening platforms, and optimised by medicinal chemistry means.
The majority of scientists in Europe, however, do not have access to suitable technology platforms and compound collections, which are generally expensive to purchase, operate and maintain. As a large-scale research infrastructure (RI) with an ‘open’ pre-competitive character, EU-OPENSCREEN will cost-effectively overcome this limitation by: involving and providing access to Europe’s leading screening platforms and chemistry groups; constructing a jointly used compound collection; and operating an open-access bioactivity database which will be accessible on a global basis.
The chemical compounds which will be developed in the framework of EU-OPENSCREEN have a number of key advantages and allow interrogation of complex biological processes that cannot be properly studied with traditional genetic approaches. They drive innovation as they help validate biological targets as ‘druggable’ (i.e. be modulated by chemical compounds) which makes them highly attractive starting points for further optimisation into marketable medicines or crop-protective agents by pharmaceutical, AgriScience and biotechnology companies.
Access to the EU-OPENSCREEN expertise and resources is available to all researchers worldwide. EU-OPENSCREEN will represent a globally relevant resource and will attract users from a variety of scientific disciplines and geographical regions. The key users can be divided into three major user groups:
- Assay providing users who will access the screening infrastructure: Researchers with a suitable, robust and screening compatible assay, interested in developing specific chemical compounds (i.e. inhibitor or activator) for their biological mechanism or pathway-of-interest to answer a biological question. In the first step, these assays are screened against the EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC compound collection; in the second step, the identified active compounds (‘hits’) are chemically optimised and translated into valuable tool compounds, which are made available to the broader scientific community.
- Compound providing users who will donate compounds: Chemists who donate their compounds can use the EU-OPENSCREEN services to expose their compounds to a large number of screens, and thereby a wide range of biological targets. The unique value proposition for chemists is that the biological activities of their compounds will be described in-depth and that their compounds may be identified as active 'hit' compounds, thereby triggering new collaborations between chemistry and biology communities.
- Database users who will access the EU-OPENSCREEN database: The open-access EU-OPENSCREEN database will serve as the publicly accessible database and collaborative data sharing environment for all EU-OPENSCREEN generated data. It is designed to support the requirements of both academia (encouraging exchange of knowledge) and industry (allowing suitable protection of IP).
Instruct-ERIC
Contact person(s): Dr. Claudia Alen Amaro, Coordinator Head of Operations
Instruct-ERIC is a pan-European research infrastructure in structural biology, making high-end technologies and methods available to scientists. Access is provided free for academic scientists at Instruct centres and includes expert support.
Services provided
Services offered by Instruct include
- Sample Preparation: Crystallisation, Nanobody Discovery, Protein Production;
- Biomolecular Analysis: Imaging, Mass Spectrometry, Molecular Biophysics;
- 3D Structural Analysis: Electron Microscopy, Magnetic Resonance Techniques, X-ray Techniques;
- Compuational Services for Structural Biology: Bioinformatics Tools, Integrative Modelling, Crystallography, Electron Microscopy, NMR
Costs
Free for academic users; on service-basis for commercial use (user access is on a fee for service basis; no obligation to disclose or publish data).
Users can apply for travel and accommodation costs where a physical visit to an Instruct facility is required.
For further information please contact us.
Access modes
Depending on the requested service, access can be on-site, remote, or mail-in sample.
For further information please contact us.
Why work with us
Instruct is at the cutting edge of new technologies: automation, remote access, new detector methods, advanced imaging. Access to Instruct-ERIC infrastructure can help advance your research - more than 1200 peer-reviewed scientific publications acknowledge Instruct.
Countries involved
BE, CZ, EMBL, FI, FR, DE, GR, IL, IT, LV, LT, NL, PT, SK, SI, ES, UK
Services contact
Contact person(s): Dr. Claudia Alen Amaro, Coordinator Head of Operations
About
Instruct-ERIC is a pan-European research infrastructure in structural biology, making high-end technologies and methods available to users from Instruct member countries. Users are given access to highly specialised instruments, with on-site expertise to help them gain the best results for their projects.
Structural biology is one of the key frameworks on which we interpret molecular and cellular functions. The main experimental technologies are complementary, and increasingly link detailed atomic structure with cellular context. Structural biology is currently in the middle of a revolution enabled by significant advances in the tools and technologies available (direct electron detectors in EM, advances in synchrotron sources and detectors, XFELs, ultra-high field NMR, super-resolution cryo-light microscopy).
Please note: Most of the RIs are constantly developing their portfolio of services, so if you do not find the service/tool you are looking for, do not hesitate to contact the RI and ask for it!