Rik WierengaFaculty of Biochemistry and Molecular MedicineUniversity of OuluFinland

FSRUO meeting, Oulu, 12 november, 2015

Biocenter Finland, Instruct-FI and Instruct:towards routine, funded, exchange visits for life science researchers from Finland to Europe and vice versa for structural biology research

BF is a national organisation of the life science researchers in Finland

BFSB is the Biocenter Finland Structural Biology network

Rik Wierenga (Oulu)Sarah Butcher (Helsinki)Dennis Bamford (Helsinki)Juha Rouvinen (UEF, Joensuu)Tiina Salminen (Abo Academy, Turku)Tassos Papageorgiou (University of Turku, Turku)Juha Maatta (Tampere)

X-ray, NMR, Mass, cryoEM

Tasks of BFSB:

1.Keeping structural biology setup in Finland state of the art

2.Engage with the Finnish life science research community to facilitate optimal use of the BFSB expertise

3.Provide high quality training

4.To communicate with Instruct

Instruct is an EU-ESFRI program, fostering structural biology development in Europe (ESFRI: European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures)-Biostruct-X (2013-2017) -iNEXT (2016-2020)

(these EU programs also help with other questions such as related to domain definition, membrane proteins and other expression problems)

BF

BFSB has expert platforms on:X-ray (Oulu, Helsinki, Turku, Joensuu)Mass/NMR (Joensuu, Helsinki)cryoEM (Helsinki)protein production (Tampere, Helsinki)

We have joined forces fostering structural biology and we have written (i)an Instruct-NAC application (NAC= National Affiliate Center) (ii)a FIRI roadmap application (FIRI is a national committee, with a SAB)(iii)an Instruct-FI FIRI equipment application

BF

BFSB Instruct-NAC (February 2014) -> Instruct-FI

BFSB FIRI roadmap (March 2014)

Instruct-FI (FIRI equipment application submitted April 2015)

Instruct-NAC (Instruct-FI, BFSB) Instruct-centre (ICVIR, Bamford)center of expertise in structural biology center of expertise in virus production

(=SAB)

Ongoing Instruct actions:

Finland is involved in discussions to setup the ERIC-statutes providing a legal framework for Finland to join officially Instruct (yearly fee is 50000€)

Once Finland has joined then the researchers in Finland have funded access to many centers of expertise in Europe: once this has been settled it will be routine to make funded visits to these centers, using an application mechanism of the Instruct office in Oxford.

Also European researchers will have funded access to Finnish expert centers

The five Instruct-FI entry-points, with different expertise

-Helsinki (Xray-membrane proteins, cryoEM, NMR)-Oulu (Xray-datacollection/enzymology, drug discovery)-Joensuu (Xray-mass)-Turku (Xray-bioinformatics)-Tampere (protein production)

Collaboration within the Finnish X-ray community:(i) BAGs: ESRF (Kajander), Biostruct-X (Glumoff) , Diamond (Lehtiö)(ii) xtalPiMS development (datatracking from crystallization experiments to PDB)(iii) FINNBOX meetings

Our platforms need funding-equipment funding via FIRI-salary funding via BF-SAB

FIRI equipment application

Instruct-FI (FIRI equipment application submitted April 2015)

The application is aimed at improving the Finnish structural biology research infrastructure

EM: The cryoEM unit uses obsolete equipment (upgrade in Helsinki)

X-ray: Reaching out to the life science research community, being able to enter the structure determination pipeline easily (upgrades in

Helsinki, Oulu, Turku)

Mass: Extending the native mass infrastructure to measure larger complexes, including also shape information (upgrade in Joensuu)

Protein production

NMR

-evaluation by an international panel-decision by the national FIRI/TIK-committee, dec-18 first decisions will be anounced-academy covers only 70% of the costs

Current:application for salary support of the platforms via the BF-SAB evaluation (submission deadline is November 31, 2015)

The new EU program:iNEXT (september 2015-september 2019)

search for ”iNEXT.EU”

search for ”iNEXT.EU”

(FIRI/TIK)

BFSB/Instruct-FI is well integrated in Biocenter Finland

BFSB/Istruct-FI reaches out to life science researchers in academia and biotech

BFSB/Instruct-FI puts much efforts in teaching and training activities

BFSB/Instruct-FI facilitates collaborations with researchers in Europe