Financing: European Funding (EU Funding)

Project reference Nr.: EST-CT-2004-7597
Start: 2005-09-01
End: 2009-08-31
Project website: http://bioptrain.org/

Description:

Completion of the sequencing of the entire human genome and other major technological advances in bioinformatics have opened up a huge range of scientific challenges that will need to be addressed in order to maintain Europe’s scientific and commercial competitiveness and effectiveness in this emerging area of healthcare. An FP6 Network of Excellence, BIOPATTERN, has been established to integrate leading institutes around Europe to form a virtual institute for the study of individualised healthcare. The overall grand vision of BIOPATTERN is to integrate the analysis of the nano level bioinformatic data with micro level biosignal data and macro level patient information data in a pan-European cooperative research effort to combat major disease classes. Selected members of BIOPATTERN (University of Nottingham, UK (UoN) , University of Florence, Italy (UoF), Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium (KUL) , University College of Borås, Sweden (UCB) and Poznan University of Technology, Poland (PUT) ) will form the core of the BIOPTRAIN EST, the aim of which is to establish a complementary wide-ranging training programme of world-class quality in bioinformatic optimisation algorithms. There are two crucial groups of beneficiaries: (i) the next generation of European scientists must be trained to take advantage of the latest advances in bioinformatics with an aim of creating a vibrant, future-proof and self-sustaining research effort; and (ii) benefits from bioinformatics advances worldwide must be targeted to the European citizen – we cannot depend on research communities based in the USA and elsewhere to meet the specific needs of European healthcare.

SMC people involved in the project:

• Yves Moreau (Coordinator)
• Bart De Moor (Promoter)