INFRAFRONTIER
The European infrastructure for phenotyping and archiving of model mammalian genomes
Medically related Life Sciences use the mouse as a model system to understand the molecular basis of health and disease in humans. An essential task for Biomedical Sciences in the 21st century will be the functional analysis of mouse models for every gene in the mammalian genome. More than 30000 mutations in ES cells and numerous genetic reference populations consisting of thousands of inbred mouse strains with segregating genetic backgrounds will be engineered and thousands of mouse models for human diseases will become available over the next years by the collaborative efforts of the International Mouse Knockout Consortium.
The major bottlenecks identified by the user community will be proper characterization (Mouse Clinics), archiving and dissemination of mouse disease models to the research laboratories. The current capacities, governance structures and funding strategies of existing infrastructures will not be able to serve the upcoming urgent needs. Existing facilities across Europe can only offer capacity for the analysis and dissemination of a few hundred disease models per year.
Thus it is imperative to organize and establish now an efficient distributed infrastructure for the phenotyping, archiving and dissemination of mouse models on a well-concerted, large-scale and pan-European level. This will be a prerequisite for maintaining Europe's leading role in the functional annotation of the mouse genome. Infrafrontier will guarantee the accessibility of mouse models and will be essential to facilitate their exploitation.
Infrafrontier is an Integrated Project of the 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission, comprising 7 work packages, 9 countries and 14 partners.
WP5 – Draft Engineering Specifications
Prof. Dr. Klaus Schughart, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research
Objectives
1) Development of detailed specifications for designing and building or upgrading of mouse holding and breeding facilities, archiving and distribution facilities and mouse phenotyping facilities.
2) To document these specifications in a formal publication.
Partners
- Helmholtz Zentrum München - German Research Center for Environmental Health, GmbH, Prof. Martin Hrabé de Angelis (Infrafrontier Coordinator), Neuherberg/München, Germany
- MRC Mammalian Genetics Unit (MRC-MGU), Prof. Steve Brown, Harwell, UK
- Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR-IBC), Prof. Glauco Tocchini-Valentini, Monterotondo/Rome, Italy
- Centre Européen de Recherche en Biologie et en Médecine GIE (CERBM-GIE), Dr. Yann Hérault, Illkirch/Strasbourg, France
- Genome Research Limited (Sanger), Prof. Karen Steel, Hinxton, UK
- Biomedical Sciences Research Center Alexander Fleming (Fleming), Prof. George Kollias, Vari/Athens, Greece
- Karolinska Institute (KI), Prof. Urban Lendahl, Stockholm, Sweden
- Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (FCG-IGC), Dr. Jocelyne Demengeot, Oeiras, Portugal
- CNRS Institute de Transgenose (INTRAGENE), Dr. Yann Hérault, Orléans, France
- Universidad Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Prof. Fatima Bosch, Barcelona, Spain
- Centro Nacional de Biotecnologìa (CNB-CSIC), Dr. Lluís Montoliu, Madrid, Spain
- University of Oulu (UOULU), Prof. Taina Pihlajaniemi, Oulu, Finland
- European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL-EBI), Dr. Ewan Birney, Hinxton, UK
- Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research GmbH (HZI), Prof. Klaus Schughart, Braunschweig, Germany
- University of Copenhagen (KU-TCF), Prof. Cord Brakebusch, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Czech Centre for Phenogenomics (BIOCEV) c.z.p.o., Dr. Radislav Sedlacek, Czech Republic
- University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Biomodels Austria (Biat), Prof. Thomas Rülicke, Vienna, Austria
- Centre for Phenogenomics (TCP) Dr. Colin McKerlie, Toronto, Canada
- Centre for Immunophenomics(CIPHE) Dr. Bernard Malissen, Marseille, France
Ministries and research councils
- Medical Research Council (MRC), UK
- Centre Européen de Recherche en Biologie et en Médecine GIE (GIE-CERBM), France
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France
- Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC), Spain
- Hellenic Republic Ministry of Development (HRMD), Greece
- Helmholtz Association (Helmholtz), Germany
- German Ministry for Research and Education (BMBF), Germany
- Swedish Research Council (SRC), Sweden
- Generalitat de Catalunya, Departament de Salut (GENCAT), Spain
- Parque Científico de Madrid (FPCM), Spain
- Communidad de Madrid, Dirección General de Universidades e Investigación (DGUI), Spain
- Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, Czech Republic (MEYSCR), Czech Republic
- INSERM, France
- Ministry of Labour Health and Social Policies (Health Sector) General Directorate Health Research (ITMOH), Italy
Leader
Groups
There are no results
Coordinator
Prof. Dr. Martin Hrabé de Angelis, Helmholtz Zentrum München - German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg/München, Germany
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Funding agency
EU-Projects