Initiative for a

European Research Infrastructure of Open

Screening Platforms for Chemical Biology
www.eu-openscreen.eu

Partners of preparatory phase project

EU-OPENSCREEN builds on national networks in 14 European countries.

NOR-OPENSCREEN
Swedish Chemical Biology Consortium
Drug Discovery and Chemical Biology
network Finnland
Danish Chemical Biology Initiative
Dutch Chemical Library Program
ChemBioNet Germany
POL-OPENSCREEN
CZ-OPENSCREEN and Czech ChemGen
Austrian PLACEBO
Spanish ChemBioBank
French Chimiothque Nationale, Rseau
Nationale de Criblage, FR-OPENSCREEN
Romanian Chemical Biology Net
Flemish Network on Chemical Biology
Collezione Nazionale dei Composti Chimici e
Centro Screening

Current partners

Associated members

Coordination Centre at FMP Berlin

Infrastructures for the

European Research Area
Chemical Biology

Investigation of biological systems using chemical tools

IQPC
Drug Discovery Partnerships
06/10/15

Page 3

February3 2013

Infrastructures for the

European Research Area
Biological &
Medical
Sciences

Physics

Understanding the
principles of life

Modern research in all scientific fields

requires expensive instruments and
resources, and is characterised by a
continuous interplay between new scientific
challenges and our technical responses to
them. (ESFRI report)

Astronomy

Social Sciences

Information
Technology

Infrastructures for the

European Research Area
European Strategy Forum on Research
Infrastructures (ESFRI)
Set up in 2002 by the Competitiveness Council.
Meeting of Senior Representatives for informal consultations
on strategic issues related to research infrastructures (RI).
Independent from the European Commission.
2004: Mandate to develop a European Strategic Roadmap for
Research Infrastructures
- to describe the needs for the next 10 to 20 years
- to identify vital new European research infrastructures.

ESFRI Roadmap
Published in October 2006, updated in 2008 and 2010.
Will be used to facilitate decision-making by member
states and EC.
Will not prioritise or decide on funding and locations.
Four areas: Physical Sciences and Engineering (PSE),
Biological and Medical Sciences (BMS), Social Sciences
and Humanities (SSH), Environment (ENV).
Total: 48 ESFRI infrastructures.

ESFRI BMS Fields of Activity

Biological
Sciences

Biological Resources &

Production Systems

Medical Sciences

Bioinformatics

Bio Banking & Molecular Resources

Functional Genomics in the Mouse

Marine Biology

Structural Biology

Clinical
Research
Translational Medicine

High Security
Laboratories

Chemical Biology (EU-OPENSCREEN)

Imaging

Systems Biology

Ecosystems
06/10/15

Microbial Resources

ESFRI BMS Fields of Activity

Towards supporting an
innovation chain without gaps
The EU-OPENSCREEN database
will be linked to other biological
databases through ELIXIR:
BioMedBridges
Compounds with potential as drug
candidates can be further
developed through EATRIS and
ECRIN

MIRRI

ANAEE

ISBE

Cell-lines and animal models for

bioprofiling of compounds are
available through BBMRI and
INFRAFRONTIER (BMS-RI)
support
Natural products from MIRRI and
EMBRC.

EU-OPENSCREENs Mission
A pan-European infrastructure to...
accelerate the discovery of biologically active substances in all areas of
the life sciences
facilitate transnational access to the most advanced technologies,
chemical and biological resources, knowledge and expertise
advance the elucidation of the molecular mechanisms of complex
biological processes
increase knowledge on the bio-activities of chemical substances, as
well as the responses of biological systems to these substances
promote the availability of safe and efficacious chemical products for
unmet needs in medicine, nutrition, agriculture, environment

THE PREPARATORY PHASE

PROJECT
WP6

MGT
Support
Team

Physical infrastructure

WP1
Management and coordination

Steering Committee

Governance
structure

WP7

WP8

Financial plan

IPR issues

WP9
Chemical
Resources

WP11

WP12

Technology
Resources

Chem&
BioInformatics

WP10
Biology
Resources

WP2
Standardisation

WP3

WP4

Training and
education

Dissemination
and outreach

WP5
Strategy

Advisory
Board

Advisory Board
Prof. Dr. Dr. Ernst Rietschel, former president of the Leibniz Association of
Research centres (WGL), now acatech - National Academy of Science
and Engineering (technology advisor for the German federal government)
Prof. Dr. Ferran Sanz, Director of GRIB (Research Group in Biomedical
Informatics) at IMIM (Municipal Institute for Medical Research) in
Barcelona. He is also a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the
Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI).
Prof Dr. Serge Braun, scientific director of the Association Francaise contre
les Myopathies (AFM)
Dr. Steve Rees, VP of Screening Sciences, AstraZeneca (AZ)

Expert Groups
Chemical Diversity Group (WP9) chaired by Dr. Michael Foley,
Broad Institute, USA
Innovative Target & Assay Group (WP10) chaired by Sir Philip
Cohen, UK
Industrial Advisory Group (WP5) chaired by Dr. Philip Gribbon,
European ScreeningPort; members: J. Everett (f. Pfizer), J.
Kihlberg (Univ. Uppsala, former AZ), T. Langer (Prestwick), H-U.
Stilz (SA)
EU-OPENSCREEN Strategy Group (WP5) chaired by Dr. James
Inglese, Chemical Genomics Centre, NIH, USA

OBJECTIVES
EU-OPENSCREENs objective is the development of novel research
tool compounds for all fields of the Life Sciences.
Tool compounds enable researchers to investigate molecular mechanisms of physiological
and pathological processes, many of which can only be studied with these chemical tools

Chemical tools complement methods of molecular biology, such as mutagenesis or RNA

interference

All generated tools and data are made publically available to the scientific community
Chemical keys for lifes locks

Chemical compounds, such as this

small molecule, can bind to cellular
structures (e.g. proteins) and modulate
their functions.

A Chemical Biology Infrastructure

Serving research in all Life Sciences
No L
ife W
Chem ithout
istry

Service Portfolio
EU-OPENSCREEN will provide services to support the development of
tool compounds at all stages

LAYOUT OF RI
EU-OPENSCREEN integrates Europes expert resources and facilities into its
unique concept of a knowledge-creating Chemical Biology Centre and supports
all stages of tool development projects in an RI open for external researchers.

Chemistry
Compounds

Biology

meets

Assays & Targets

User

Activity
profiles

User

EU-OPENSCREEN-ERIC
Compound Collection

Database

Project Management

Training & Education

Service contracts

Partner Sites
Screening Technology

Chemistry Services

Compound Profiling

Compound Management

Tool
compounds

UNIQUE ERIC ELEMENTS

The European Chemical Biology Library ECBL will
- be designed and built on the expert knowledge of European chemists
- cover unbiased chemical diversity with an expected size of 200k to 300k
compounds
- be driven by the prospect of bioactivity, intellectual curiosity, uniqueness,
and the goal of generating knowledge (not necessarily new chemical
entities, NCEs)
- be composed to optimally serve the community and its needs; will contain
selections from academic chemistry labs, commercial collections, known
drugs, natural products, environmentals, etc.
- be quality controlled by approved standard method (LC-MS)
- be fully profiled with a set of basic properties (biophysical, cellular
cytotoxicity, antimicrobial)
- be systematically profiled against hundreds of assays conducted by the
network of screening centres.

UNIQUE EUROPEAN ASSETS

The European Chemical Biology Database (ECBD) will be a web portal
with powerful search and analysis capabilities:
contains validated output from screening centres in a public as well as prerelease environment.
supports curation, annotation and organization of data + metadata.
data deposition with flexible privacy model for rapid and safe dissemination
and exploitation. Optional hold period of 18 months for data publication.
The broadest possible use of data through public accessibility and
dissemination. Public data also freely available for complete download,
redistribution.
High standards of security and traceability of IP (citable indexing of data
points (EUOS, DOI or URL). Links to originator labs for primary raw
unprocessed data.
Links to SAR (e.g. ChEMBL), Chemical Structure (e.g. PubChem), and
Target (e.g. UniProt) resources. Links established with new NIH-funded
BARD resource.

Project Selection
Projects are evaluated by external reviewers and implemented
according to milestones along a defined timeline.

TOOL
COMPOUND
Validated chemical
structure
Extensive basic Bioprofile
Bioactivity data from
hundreds of assays

BUDGET (LIMITED CAPACITY)

The required minimum budget for EU-OPENSCREEN is modest and
shared between member countries.

Service site upgrades

National funding

Central costs

Project costs

(6 years)

(6 years)

Shared funding
~ 27 m
(e.g. GDP-share)

Shared funding
~ 30 m
(e.g. GDP-share,
cost ceiling)

Upgrade 1

45 m already
invested

Upgrade 2
Upgrade 3
Upgrade 4
Upgrade 5

Office
ECBL
ECBD
Training

Shared funding of
Member countries

BUDGET (FULL CAPACITY)

The required minimum budget for EU-OPENSCREEN is modest and
shared between member countries.
Project costs
(6 years)

Diverse
funding
sources
~ 60 m

Users
(research grants, in
addition to EU-grants)

Service site upgrades

Central costs
(6 years)

National funding

Shared funding
~ 27 M
(e.g. GDP-share)

EU-funding to
EU-OPENSCREEN

Upgrade 1

45 m already
invested

Upgrade 2
Upgrade 3
Upgrade 4
Upgrade 5

EU-funding to users
(research grants)

Office
ECBL
ECBD
Training

Shared funding of
Member countries

ADDED VALUE
EU-OPENSCREENs open character: large pool of external biologists
and chemists provide wide range of expertise, assays and diverse
compounds.
Compounds
H
French compound
FR
it
UK

FR
Targets

Targets

UK
DE
ES

DE

Spanish target

Compounds

ES
IT

IT
x
Without EU-OPENSCREEN:
Limited chance of finding a hit against a
target from local or
national compound collections

x
With EU-OPENSCREEN:
European Scale Advantage: Exponential
increase of the likelihood of finding a hit against
a target from a national compound collection

ADDED VALUE
EU-OPENSCREENs open character: large pool of external biologists
and chemists provide wide range of expertise, assays and diverse
compounds.

UK
DE

ES
IT

Without EU-OPENSCREEN:
Limited chance of finding a hit against a
target from local or
national compound collections

DE

Spanish target

FR

Compounds
H
French compound
FR
it
UK
Targets

Targets

Compounds

ES
IT
x

With EU-OPENSCREEN:
European Scale Advantage: Exponential
increase of the likelihood of finding a hit against
a target from a national compound collection

IMPACT ON SCIENCE
In the Life Sciences, large-scale open-access research consortia have
already proven fundamental to breakthroughs in their fields.

Human Genome
Organisation

Structural Genomics
Consortium

EU-OPENSCREEN

Output

Sequence data of
human genomes

Human protein
structures

Novel tool compounds

for LifeSciences

Model

Not-for-profit

Not-for-profit

Not-for-profit

Data policy

Open-access

Open-access

Open-access

Impact

Advancing our understanding

Advancing our understanding Advancing our understanding
of biological processes.
of biological processes.
of biological processes.
New approaches to
New approaches to disease
New druggable targets for
disease treatment, diagnosis,
treatment
disease treatment
prevention

Weigelt (2009): The case for open-access chemical biology. A strategy for pre-competitive medicinal chemistry to promote drug discovery. EMBO Rep. 10: 941945

IMPACT ON DRUG DISCOVERY

Public Sector Research Institutions (PSRI) contribute particularly to new NCEs and new indications .

Stevens, A.J. et al., 2011, N ENGL J MED 364:535-541.

TIMELINE
Now in the 3rd year of its Preparatory Phase, EU-OPENSCREEN will
initiate construction and operation in 2014-2015.
Roadmap

Preparation

Interim

Construction

Operation

ESFRI Roadmap: ESFRI considers EU-OPENSCREEN as vital to the

excellence of research and innovation in Europe and included
it on the European Roadmap of Research Infrastructures.

Preparatory Phase (3 years): Preparation of a business plan

describing in detail the mode of construction and operation.
MoU signed. EU funding: 3.7 M.

Interim Phase (1-1.5 years): ERIC application and approval. Institutional funding.

Construction Phase (1 year): Construction of infrastructure (existing and new sites). National
funding.

Operation Phase: Active infrastructure with access for researchers. Diverse funding sources.

CURRENT STATUS
AND NEXT STEPS
EU-OPENSCREEN was included on several national roadmaps and is
now initiating negotiations with governments and funding
organisations.

EU-OPENSCREEN in 3rd year of Preparatory Phase:

Challenge before Construction and Operation
Phases is the securing of (financial) commitment of
member countries

Timelines of member countries vary: Transition

Committee for the time between the end of the
Preparatory Phase and the start of the
Construction and Operation Phases will be formed

EU-OPENSCREEN included on several national

Roadmaps

MoU document , financial plan, funding strategy,

draft ERIC statutes and draft Business Plan
already available

On national Roadmap start negotiations

Decision expected in 2013

EU-OPENSCREEN Executive Summary

Page 27

August 2013

Next Project & Stakeholder Meeting

Tuesday, 19 Nov Project Meeting
09:00-13:00
General Assembly meeting
(project participants)
14:30-18:00
EU-OPENSCREEN outreach
and synergies (invited guests) Interactions with
representatives of other ESFRI infrastructures, JPI's
and IMIs European Lead Factory
19:30
EU-OPENSCREEN networking dinner
Wednesday, 20 Nov Stakeholder Meeting
09:30-16:00
EU-OPENSCREEN Science
Day (open)
- 3 presentations from EU-OPENSCREEN
- 6 reports on flagship projects
13:00-16:00
Transition Committee Meeting
(closed)

06/10/15

Oslo
Norway

28

THE TEAM

Thank you for your attention

www.eu-openscreen.eu