Infrafrontier project expands to include six new partners

Helmholtz Zentrum M-nchen today announced that the Infrafrontier project, funded by the European Union, has been expanded to include six partners from Canada, the Czech Republic, Austria, France and Italy. The new partners will join the effort of the other 22 members of Infrafrontier in building up an international research infrastructure to improve open access to high-quality mouse models. Animal models have become an important tool in the study of complex human diseases such as diabetes, osteoporosis, asthma and depression, but also in the study of fundamental mechanisms such as speech development in humans. Colin McKerlie, spokesman of the Canadian partner, views the partnership as a "crucial step to successfully face one of the most interesting scientific challenges of the 21st century; to understand the function of every gene in the genome."

Professor Martin Hrab- de Angelis is director of the Institute of Experimental Genetics at Helmholtz Zentrum M-nchen and coordinates the EU Project Infrafrontier. "The international expansion facilitates the networking of the best scientists across the globe," Martin Hrab- de Angelis said. This opportunity is especially important to the Czech partners, as Prof. Radislav Sedlacek, programme coordinator for the Czech Center for Phenogenomics, stressed.

"We know that in the coming years we will be confronted with scientific tasks that cannot be solved with the infrastructure we currently have in Europe," Hrab- de Angelis went on to say. Infrafrontier will close this gap by expanding existing facilities and building new ones. A central coordination unit shall also be established. These endeavors will provide biomedical research with an international, open-access research infrastructure.

Source: Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health