This website is the home of the ECCB conference series. The website contains links to past ECCB conferences and gives information on European research initiatives in Bioinformatics.

EUROPEAN RESEARCH INITIATIVES

Projects funded by the European Union

Sixth Framework Program

Networks of Excellence (NoE)

• BioSapiens
  The network is made up of bioinformatics researchers from 25 institutions based in 14 countries throughout Europe. The objective of the BioSapiens is to provide a large scale, concerted effort to annotate genome data by laboratories distributed around Europe, using both informatics tools and input from experimentalists.
• EMBRACE
  This network will optimize informatics and information exploitation by pure and applied biological scientists in both the academic and commercial sectors. It will work to integrate the major databases and software tools in bioinformatics, using existing methods and emerging Grid service technologies.
• ENFIN
  This new EU NoE is a bioinformatics project with extensive experimental laboratory links, focused on delivering a platform for integration of diverse experimental types in a systems biology manner.
• viRgil
  viRgil is the first-ever European surveillance network capable of addressing current and emerging antiviral drugs resistance developments. Focusing first on three major diseases (influenza and viral hepatitis B and C), its mission is to build a sustainable, patient-oriented ‘virtual institute’ structured into interacting platforms that together will allow the containment of the problem of viral drug resistance.

Strategic Research Projects (STREPs)

• ATD
  ATD aims to understand the mechanisms that are responsible for the formation of transcript isoforms on a genome-wide scale by creating a value-added database of alternate transcript from human and model species.
• COMBIO
  This project aims to bring computer models and simulations to the experimental community. The focus will be on two systems involving different aspects of biological systems: networks and self-organization which will be applied to different simulation approximations. This will enable the identification of both the modeling and simulation strategies that are better suited for particular experimental problems.
• COSBICS
  The goal of this project is to establish and apply a novel computational framework in which to investigate dynamic interactions of molecules within cells. Instead of simply mapping proteins in a pathway, this project is concerned with “dynamic pathway modeling”.
• DIAMONDS
  This project aims to demonstrate the power of a Systems Biology approach to study the regulatory network structure of the most fundamental biological process in eukaryotes: the cell cycle. An integrative approach will be applied to build a basic model of the cell cycle, in four different species including S. cerevisiae (budding yeast), S. pombe (fission yeast), A. thaliana (weed, model plant) and human cells.
• EMI-CD
  The entire drug development process should be accompanied by bioinformatics and systems biology approaches, especially by the introduction of simulation techniques and experimental design.  (A part of the process where this has already been successful is in silico experiments which can be the basis for a successful screening within the drug discovery process). This project attempts to develop a software platform that is able to meet the requirements of other parts of the process.

Integrated Projects (IPs)

• ACGT
  ACGT brings together internationally recognised leaders in their respective fields, with the aim to deliver to the cancer research community an integrated Clinico-Genomic ICT environment enabled by a powerful GRID infrastructure.
• Interaction Proteome
  The objectives of this project include the establishment of a broadly applicable platform of routine methods for the analysis of protein interaction networks. Interaction Proteome will develop novel technology, including a high-end mass spectrometer with extremely large dynamic range, high-density peptide arrays, and improved visualization technology for light and electron microscopy.
• VIZIER
  This project aims to perform a ground-breaking impact on the identification of potential new drug targets against RNA viruses through comprehensive structural characterization of the replicative machinery of a carefully selected and diverse set of viruses.

Coordination Actions (CAs)

• ESBIC-D
  A systems biology CA, focusing on complex diseases using cancer as a prototypical problem.
• YSBN
  The Yeast Systems Biology Network proposes the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model system to develop the field and to advance our understanding of the rules and principles of the dynamic operation of cellular systems. It will serve the integration of activities in yeast systems biology.

Additional FP6 Resources

• Europa Major Projects Library
  A listing of all Integrated Projects and Networks of Excellence within FP6.
• Life Sciences Home Page
• Genomics Home Page and Project Newsletters

Fifth Framework Program

• BioBabel
  This project has delivered its objective to enhance the interoperability of biological databases by improving the standardization of biochemical terminology and by the introduction of shared ontologies. The project successfully drew on the expertise of databases maintained at major bioinformatics centers throughout Europe.
• BioMinT
  Genome research has spawned unprecedented volumes of data, but characterization of DNA and protein sequences has not kept pace with the rate of data acquisition. To anyone trying to know more about a given sequence, the worldwide collection of abstract and papers remains the ultimate information source. The goal of the BioMinT project is to develop a generic text mining tool that interprets diverse types of query, retrieves relevant documents from the biological literature, extracts the required information, and outputs the result as a database slot filler or as a structured report.
• E-BioSci
  Driven both by the new discipline of genomics and increasing use of multi-dimensional imaging technologies, the amount of digital information in the life sciences is growing exponentially. As part of the response to this challenge a next generation scientific information platform has been generated that will interlink genomic and other factual data with the life sciences research literature.
• IMGT
  Integrated system to manage the enormous complexity of the genome and proteome of the specific immune response: IMGT, the international ImMunoGeneTics information system.
• TEMBLOR
  This project concentrates on research and development to build the European Bioinformatics resources for the genomic era and beyond. These resources will be embedded in an integrated layer allowing biomedical researchers to fully exploit genomic and proteomic data.