EU-OPENSCREEN – A European Infrastructure of Open Screening Platforms for Chemical Biology

EU-OPENSCREEN is a consortium of 17 research groups from 12 different European countries which aims at establishing a European infrastructure of open-access screening platforms for chemical biology. This initiative integrates high-throughput screening platforms, chemical libraries, chemical expertise and resources for hit discovery and optimisation, bio- and chemo-informatics support, and a database containing screening results, assay protocols, and chemical information. It will offer researchers from academia and SMEs open access to the most advanced technologies for the identification of compounds affecting new biological targets and thereby satisfying the unmet need for new bioactive compounds in all fields of the life sciences (e.g. human and veterinary medicine, systems biology, biotechnology, agriculture and nutrition). The European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) identified EU-OPENSCREEN as being vital to the development of science and innovation in Europe and included EU-OPENSCREEN into the European Roadmap for Research Infrastructures in 2008. EU-OPENSCREEN started its 3-year preparatory phase in November 2010 and plans to be in operation from November 2014 onwards.