Between atom and cell: Integrating Molecular Biophysics Approaches in Europe with the ARBRE/MOBIEU Network

by biofisica · Published 23/03/2017 · Updated 23/03/2017

ARBRE/MOBIEU Network: Integrating Molecular Biophysics Approaches in Europe

The ARBRE/MOBIEU network

The ARBRE initiative (Association of Resources for Biophysical Research in Europe) was launched in 2014 by Patrick England (Paris) and Thomas Jowitt (Manchester) to ally the forces in molecular-scale biophysics and to provide it with a clearer identity. Together with its associated COST action MOBIEU (MOlecular BIophysics in EUrope), started in April 2016, has become the ARBRE/MOBIEU network. It aims to seed a large-scale pan-European interdisciplinary synergistic clustering, allowing to ally and synergize the power of spectroscopic, hydrodynamic, real-time microfluidic, thermodynamic and single-molecule approaches.

Molecular-scale biophysics is a dynamic interdisciplinary field that aims to study biological macromolecules and assemblies as a whole, bridging the gap between atomic-resolution structural descriptions and cellular-level observations (“Between Atom and Cell”), with significant applications in biomedicine and drug discovery. However, before 2014, the core facilities, infrastructures and resource labs in this field were either isolated or scattered within different structural biology or protein production organizations, with little opportunity to synergize efficiently.

This novel open network will create an optimal environment for the development of innovative integrative biophysical approaches, at the level of data acquisition, analysis and modeling, as well as for the design of unprecedented and ambitious combinations of methodologies, to decipher more efficiently crucial biological phenomena and to overcome significant biomedical challenges.

ARBRE-MOBIEU will also broadly disseminate knowledge, notably through the organization of a strong programme of Workshops, Training Schools and Short Term Scientific Missions aimed in priority to Early Career Investigators and technical scientists.
In parallel, it will place a special emphasis on the construction of a new distributed molecular-scale biophysics European infrastructure, aiming to facilitate the transnational access to instrumentation and expertise for a wide user community, in particular from Inclusiveness Target Countries.

Finally, ARBRE-MOBIEU will provide a platform for scientists to establish early contacts with instrument developers (at the level of concept or prototype), allowing to set-up win-win partnerships that will allow to define and develop together future instrumentation that genuinely meets the needs of the broad biomedical and life sciences communities.