News

BIO Open Lab infrastructure enriches CERIC’s open access offer for the life sciences

A new set of facilities gathered under the umbrella of Bio Open Lab (BOL), have been added to the CERIC open access offer after being reviewed by life sciences experts (Annalisa Pastore and Guy Schoehn) from the International Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (ISTAC) of CERIC, together with the ISTAC Chair, Andrew Harrison and accompanied by CERIC Executive Director, Jana Kolar, and colleagues.

BOL is a collection of facilities, distributed across universities and institutes at three centres in Italy – in Salento, Salerno and Trieste – that aims to provide an integrated system of research equipment and instruments dedicated to investigations in the field of biological and biomedical research.

Specifically, BIO Open Lab includes:

  • A Next Generation Sequencing facility in at AREA Science Park in Trieste, offering latest generation sequencing platform in the field of genomics and epigenomics, for the investigation of molecular and biological mechanisms, with relevant applications in the field of predictive medicine and health;
  • A Mass Spectrometry facility at the University of Salerno, offering instrumentation for mapping analysis of molecular masses and to determine the structural formula of compounds of biological interest, with uses in the field of metabolomics, and a Scientific Computing Centre providing resources and services for data storage and analysis;
  • A Transmission Holographic Electron Microscopy facility at the University of Salento in Lecce, offering low-dose instrumentation, for integration with the advanced microscopy techniques of CERIC-ERIC.

BOL integration into the CERIC open access offer allows the Consortium to further enhance the offer to users in the field of Materials Science, and in particular in the Life Sciences’ domain.

In fact, as stated by the expert group of evaluators, “all three centres offer new, complementary capabilities and scientific opportunities for life scientists. At the same time, CERIC would bring these laboratories expertise in encouraging and supporting user access, support for students and technique development, and a much wider network of scientists to bring yet more diverse life-sciences challenges to BOL, and strengthen their science output”.

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BIO Open Lab is a project worth € 12,434,500, co-financed by the European Union, European Regional Development Fund. The initiative has been co-ordinated by the AREA Science Park in Trieste, and supported by the Italian National Operational Programme (PON) on Research and Innovation 2014-2020, with integration of some of their capacity into CERIC a key element of the proposal.