Latest News

The European Union invests 10 million Euro from its Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme in enabling European researchers to use unique, state-of-the-art infrastructures for structural biology from 23 research institutes in Europe. Aim of this initiative called iNEXT, is to determine new structures and functions of proteins and their complexes, by giving researchers integrated access to structural biology technologies such as NMR, electron microscopy and X-ray technologies. iNEXT is coordinated from the Netherlands by prof. Rolf Boelens (Utrecht University) with dr. Anastassis Perrakis (Netherlands Cancer Institute) as deputy coordinator.

 

iNEXT will provide access to the most advanced facilities for structural biology in Europe. The collaborating facilities include advanced X-ray synchrotron sources in Grenoble, Hamburg, Oxford, Lund and Paris, high-field NMR facilities in Utrecht, Frankfurt, Florence, Brno, Lyon and Grenoble, imaging facilities in Oxford, Brno, Heidelberg, Leiden and Madrid and advanced biophysical characterization in Amsterdam. Together, these facilities will make it possible for European scientists to perform ground breaking protein research with technologies to which they otherwise would not have had access.

 

iNEXT contributes to European goals for health and green economy, as fundamental knowledge of biological processes is important, for example, for the development of novel drugs and safe and sustainable food production methods.The program is setup in coordination with the European ESFRI projects Instruct, ESS, EU-OPENSCREEN and Euro-BioImaging. Researchers across Europe will be able to apply for access to the advanced facilities of iNEXT through a peer-review process. Starting September 1, 2015, the facilities will be available and proposals for access can be submitted.