The Institute of Molecular Genetics, in addition to BIOCEV centre of excellence, hosts three large research infrastructures with national impact that serve both the Czech and the European research community. These infrastructures are also active members of the respective European research infrastructures, thus facilitate interactions with the international community. They are listed as national research infrastructures in the Czech roadmap of large research infrastructures.
All offer powerful technological platforms under open access. The ARIB researchers will benefit from open access to their services and resources.
BIOCEV (Biotechnology and Biomedicine Center of the Academy of Sciences and Charles University in Vestec)
The BIOCEV project is being jointly implemented by 7 partner institutions, including six research institutes of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Charles University represented by the 1st Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Science. The IMG has a leading role as the beneficiary of the project.
The BIOCEV goal is to establish an European Centre of Excellence in biomedicine and biotechnology. The BIOCEV research agenda is currently divided into five research programmes: Functional genomics; Cell biology and virology; Structural biology and protein engineering; Biomaterials and tissue culture engineering; and Development of therapeutic and diagnostic strategies. By 2020, as many as 450 researchers, including 200 post-graduate students, are supposed to work at the BIOCEV Center. The Center’s objective is to learn details about organisms at the molecular level that will be used in applied research and in the development of new therapeutic procedures.
Czech Centre for Phenogenomics
The Czech Centre for Phenogenomics (CCP) is unique in combining genetic engineering capabilities, advanced phenotyping and imaging modalities, specific pathogen free (SPF) animal housing and husbandry, as well as cryopreservation and archiving, all in one central location – at BIOCEV campus. This concentration of a specialized infrastructure and expertise provides a unique and valuable resource for the biomedical and biotechnology research community.
The CCP, through its membership in INFRAFRONTIER, is a partner in a collective global network that aims to comprehensively and systematically analyze the effect of loss of function gene mutations in mice. The goal is to produce a comprehensive ‘encyclopedia‘ of gene function, that will help identify causative factors of human diseases as well as novel targets for therapeutic intervention. Through the adoption of standardized procedures and pipelines, and the usage of quality control measures and cross-validation, INFRAFRONTIER goal is to produce high-quality data that will not only function as a scientific reference catalog, but will also enable comprehensive meta-analyses that could uncover otherwise hidden disease relationships and functional interactions.
CZ-OPENSCREEN
CZ-OPENSCREEN (National infrastructure for chemical biology) is the state-of-the-art infrastructure for basic and applied research in the fields of chemical biology and genetics, which provides an open access to users. The mission of CZ-OPENSCREEN is to identify new molecular probes/tools for research and proof-of-concept compounds for the development of new potential therapeutics.
CZ-OPENSCREEN represents a multipurpose platform and covers all areas of biology (from simple biomedical studies of proteins, via cellular testing to advanced tests of the whole organisms). It conducts high-throughput screening and High -Content Screening, the preparation of compounds (automated systems for storage and formatting compounds) and the optimization of newly identified biologically active compounds (organic and medicinal chemistry).
Moreover, CZ-OPENSCREEN serves as the National node of the pan-European ESFRI infrastructure EU-OPENSCREEN, which integrates high-capacity screening platforms through Europe and provides access to the European Chemical Biology Database (ECBD).
Czech-BioImaging
Czech-Biolmaging is a national distributed research infrastructure for biological and medical imaging consisting of leading imaging facilities in the Czech Republic. The Czech-BioImaging is coordinated by the Institute of Molecular Genetics. Czech-Biolmaging provides an open access to a wide range of imaging technologies and expertise to all scientists by a unified and coordinated logistics approach.
Czech-Biolmoging offers access to, for example, advanced light microscopy, fluorescence microscopy, super-resolution microscopy, electron microscopy, correlative microscopy, sample preparation, neuroscience imaging, magnetic resonance, and magnetic particle imaging. Czech-Biolmoging provides users with expertise and guidance starting from designing an experiment to data analysis. Czech-Biolmaging also develops new imaging methods and organizes training programmes.
Czech-Biolmaging infrastructure is closely interlinked with the pan-European large research infrastructure Euro-Biolmaging.
