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March 2009 |
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Corporate |
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Colja Laane: "NGI in sign of FES" 2009 is already well under way with activities led by the vision of life sciences in the coming 10 years. The question facing NGI is how our Genomics Centres can in time gain a fixed place in the (inter)national R&D and innovation structure. The first opportunities for embedding presented themselves in a new FES (Structural Economic Reinforcement Fund) round of grants. FES is a government fund financed from natural gas receipts and is intended for investment in infrastructure and the knowledge economy. Not only our VIRGO Consortium, Celiac Disease Consortium, Ecogenomics Consortium and Nutrigenomics Consortium, but also our Technology Centres participate actively in the FES proposals. Approval of these proposals would mark a wonderful start to the new Genomics year. Read more |
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Valorisation |
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BioGeneration Ventures announces new investments NGI is one of the founding partners of BioGeneration Ventures Fund. This fund is dedicated to assisting start-ups and early stage companies seeking to commercialise cutting-edge research in life sciences.
Multi-million euro deal for BioGeneration
Ventures investment Progentix
FlexGen closes new round of financing
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Enthusiasm still strong for start-up companies in Life Sciences With 18 entries, the number of proposals in the second round of the NGI Pre-Seed Grant has doubled in relation to the number in the first round. Starting a company in the Life Sciences would appear still to be popular, despite the economic crisis. In the NGI Pre-Seed Grant, potential start-up companies in the Life Sciences can submit their proposals in order to become eligible for a grant of max. € 250,000. Read more |
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Prosensa raises € 18 million financing
Centre for Medical Systems Biology
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New chip for simplified analysis of phoshopeptides A breakthrough technology development from Prof. Albert Heck’s group, part of the Netherlands Proteomics Centre (NPC) at Utrecht University, has resulted in a new HPLC-Chip (High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Chip) that dramatically simplifies the analysis of phosphopeptides in proteomics research. The Phosphochip is used to identify post-translational modifications (PTMs) in regulating biological pathways. Protein phosphorylation is one of the most important PTM events within mechanisms that regulate protein function in biological cells. The new HPLC-Chip is now introduced to the market by Agilent Technologies Inc. Read more |
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Danone strengthens Industrial Platform of Kluyver Centre Dairy giant Danone became a formal member of the Kluyver Centre for Genomics of Industrial Fermentation in February 2009. Danone is particularly interested in the genomics of industrial lactic acid bacteria for the production of new health-promoting foodstuffs. Dr Johan van Hylckama Vlieg is pleased with this development. He has recently made the step from Nizo food research, a partner of the Kluyver Centre, to R&D of Danone in Paris. |
New spin-off Kluyver Centre makes exclusive antifungal substances Fungal infections form a difficult to combat phenomenon that occurs all over the world. The number of effective antifungal agents is limited, however. HTC Hitexacoat is a new spin-off of the Kluyver Centre for Genomics of Industrial Fermentation set up by Prof. Cees van den Hondel. HTC Hitexacoat has developed a special technology to detect new substances with a highly specific and efficient antifungal effect, which do not constitute any hazard to humans or the environment. Read more |
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Genomics Centres |
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CBSG director Willem Stiekema to Amsterdam Prof.Dr Willem Stiekema will soon take leave of the Centre for BioSystems Genomics (CBSG). After 26 years and various positions at Wageningen UR, he will as of 1 May 2009 join the Vrije Universiteit and the University of Amsterdam as Professor of Bioinformatics and quartermaster/director of Education of the yet to be founded Amsterdam Graduate School of Science (AGSS). Willem Stiekema has, right from the very beginning, been involved in the setting up of genomics research in the Netherlands. He was one of the persons who submitted the Strategic Action Plan Genomics in 2000 that laid the basis for the Advisory Committee Knowledge Infrastructure Genomics (Committee Wijffels), which in April 2001 gave a positive advice on a government investment of € 272 million in genomics research. Read more |
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Read more about changes in management at the Genomics Centres and other interesting facts >> |
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Systems Biology approach reveals the extent of hidden variability in plants In a recent publication by researchers at the Centre for BioSystems Genomics (CBSG) and others in Nature Genetics, a Systems Biology approach, involving genomics, metabolomics, proteomics and transcriptomics, has been used to investigate the genetic variability in Arabidopsis. Results have shown that a huge amount of genetic variability is present but invisible, without having any morphological or phenotypic consequences. Such variability is, however, likely to be of major importance in a plant’s ability to cope with e.g. disease and environmental perturbation. Most major molecular and phenotypic effects appeared to be linked to just six so-called hot-spots in the Arabidopsis genome. Read more |
Loci influencing lipid levels and coronary heart disease risk in European cohorts The Centre for Medical Systems Biology (CMSB) participates in the ENGAGE consortium that aims to translate the wealth of data emerging from large-scale research in genetic and genomic epidemiology into information relevant to future clinical applications. The January 2009 edition of Nature Genetics featured no fewer than 6 ENGAGE articles, including one with CMSB partner Yurii Aulchenko as first author, who is also ENGAGE young investigator of the month March. Aulchenko and colleagues identified genetic variants associated with a range of lipid traits in 16 diverse European population cohorts. They identified 22 risk loci (including 6 new ones) associated with lipid metabolism. Read more |
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Healthy purple tomatoes gain massive global attention Transcriptomics and metabolomics technologies developed within the Centre for BioSystems Genomics (CBSG) programme have been employed within the EU project, FLORA, to characterise GM tomatoes with enhanced levels of antioxidants. Next to typical levels of the usual lycopene pigment, these tomatoes also produce anthocyanins at levels equivalent to e.g blackcurrants. This double dose of antioxidants was shown to prolong the lifespan of mice predisposed to develop cancer. Simultaneous press releases from the project partners in The Netherlands, UK and Italy led to around one million new pages on Google within 48 hours. Read more |
Noninvasive MR spectroscopy in living mouse brain Researchers from the Centre for Medical Systems Biology (CMSB) have published in Magnetic Resonance in Medicine the first in vivo two dimensional (2D) magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) study of the mouse brain. MRS is a non-invasive tool that can be used to measure the chemical composition of tissues in vivo and characterise functional metabolic processes in different parts of the body. The authors applied this specialised technique to acquire a comprehensive neurochemical composition of the living mouse brain and identify multiple brain metabolites in a single measurement. Read more |
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€ 22,5 million grant for Dutch biobank consortium A proposal of the Dutch Biobanking and Biomolecular Resources Research Infrastructure (BBMRI) consortium led by Centre for Medical Systems Biology director Prof. Dr Gert-Jan van Ommen received a national grant of € 22.5 million for three years to create a biobank infrastructure. This proposal is in line with the advice by the committee on National Road Map Large-scale Research Facilities (Van Velzen Committee). The key objective of BBMRI-NL is to establish an integrated Dutch biobank infrastructure for maximum utility to both public and private biomedical research. This project will also allow efficient coupling to the ESFRI BBMRI project. Read more |
Clear effect of probiotics in the gut of healthy adults A strongly multidisciplinary research team involving food scientists, microbiologists, gastroenterologists and bioinformaticians recently published an article on the effects of the consumption of Lactobacillus plantarum on the small intestinal immune system in humans. The study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is one of the first to report a clear effect of probiotics in the gut of healthy adults. This impressive achievement is the result of a close collaboration between Top Institute Food and Nutrition, the Nutrigenomics Consortium, and the Netherlands Bioinformatics Centre (NBIC). Read more |
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Genomics Programmes |
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ERA-NET Plant Genomics funds 12 transnational research projects Through the second call titled ‘Strengthening the European Research Area in Plant Genomics – integrating new technologies in plant science’ ERA-PG will fund 12 transnational projects, of which eight with a Dutch participant, out of 54 submitted. The overall quality of the proposals was very high and the call was highly competitive. NGI - initiator and principal coordinator of this ERA-NET- will contribute € 2.2 million to this call, the total budget of the second call being approximately € 16 million. The projects will run for three years and will start in 2009. Selected projects are published on the ERA-PG website. Read more |
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Strong interest in Horizon grant The Horizon programme continues to attract strong interest from genomics and bioinformatics researchers. A total of 85 applications were submitted during the current round of Horizon Breakthrough projects. This time, many applications (29) were submitted by female researchers (over one third of the total). The results of this round will be announced in early June. The deadline for the next (and last Breakthrough projects) is expected in the autumn of 2009. Read more |
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Society |
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Recommendations to European Parliament on sustainable biofuels In November 2008, 24 experts accepted the invitation by Kluyver Centre for Genomics of Industrial Fermentation to spend a three-day session on how to best advance the development of biofuels. “Political measures promoting biofuels may not be at the expense of food production and are therefore logically linked to agriculture. That's why we need an integral agro-industrial policy," said Alfredo Aguilar of the European Committee. The Kluyver Centre, together with STOA (Scientific Technology Options Assessment), the research group for the European Parliament, subsequently organised a debate with the European Parliament in which 10 recommendations were highlighted. Read more |
Screening of athletes’ genes on the sports agenda Adding genetics and genomics as a tool to existing ways of tracing athletes who are at risk for fatal injuries of e.g. their heart or brain, raises ethical questions. Fewer athletes will risk fatal injuries, but more could be excluded from practicing their passion and profession. In the complex relationship between sponsors, clubs and coaches, it is not self-evident whether genetic screening will increase athletes’ autonomy or diminish it. This issue should be put prominently on the sports agenda, according to the participants of a workshop organised by Centre for Society and Genomics (CSG) on February 12-14 in Maastricht. Among them was Ms Erica Terpstra, chair of NOC*NSF, also a member of the NGI Valorisation Board. |
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Beat the flu virus
In 2009, the Erasmus MC and the Rotterdam
natural history museum organise the scientific
event ‘H5N1 – The revolution of a flu virus’ and
an exhibition. Central theme is the race between
science and avian flu viruses. The target group
consists of pupils in the higher classes of HAVO
(higher general secondary education) and VWO (pre-university
education). Prof. Ab Osterhaus (director
VIRGO
Consortium), working on behalf of the Erasmus MC
in cooperation with RANJ (design studio Serious
Games), created an online game ‘The Great Flu’,
in which genomics technology plays a role.
Purpose of the game is to combat a flu pandemic.
The player is given a budget with which to
deploy research teams and take crisis measures.
The ultimate goal is to find an intervention
strategy. |
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Events |
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28 March 2009
19 - 22 July 2009 |
6 - 8 April 2009 |
8 - 21 May 2009
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8 - 11 July 2009
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update contacts –
order a publication |
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| T +31 (0)70 344 0672 | E info@genomics.nl | www.genomics.nl | |