Participants
FELICS has four contracted partners (EMBL-EBI, EPO, SIB, University of Cologne - Year 1, Technical University of Braunschweig - Years 2 to 5) who have agreed to cooperate pursuant to the terms of a Consortium Agreement which specifies the organisation of the Project work and management, and defines the respective rights and obligations of the Contractors. Although FELICS has a small number of partners, it connects to more than 30 additional partners throughout Europe by having major complementarities with the EMBRACE, BioSapiens and ENFIN Networks of Excellence which form an essential part of the FELICS context.
| Organisation | Short name | Short description (fields of excellence) and specific roles in the consortium |
|---|---|---|
| EMBL Outstation The European Bioinformatics Institute |
EMBL-EBI | The EBI is Europe's main hub for the collection, organisation and distribution of biomolecular data. By gathering data from the scientific community, and adding value, both by complex computation and careful curation, it constructs a comprehensive range of interlinked databases which are served to a worldwide community of about 200000 scientists. This is done through a web-site which sees about 2.5 million hits every day. The EBI's capabilities come from a total institute of about 290 individuals from about 20 different nations. They include expert bioinformaticians, software engineers and database builders, along with a substantial basic research component which provides an essential context for its services to European Scientists. The EBI is also a strategically crucial European partner in global bioinformatics, and has negotiated many key international data exchange agreements, particularly with the USA and Japan. The EBI will coordinate the project, taking responsibility for all network activities, will lead jra01 to jra09, which include the genome related database activities, proteomics related work, the macromolecular structure database and the microarray database. It will be involved in the enzyme related work of jras10 to 13, and also the patent database work of jras 14 and 15. The EBI will, in addition, provide access under TA1. |
| Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics | SIB | The SIB is an academic not-for-profit foundation established on March 30, 1998 whose mission is to promote research, the development of databanks and computer technologies, teaching and service activities in the field of bioinformatics, in Switzerland with international collaborations. The SIB brings Swiss experts in bioinformatics together and provides high quality services to the national and international scientific community. Members of the SIB include research groups in Geneva (among which Swiss-Prot), Lausanne and Basel. The SIB expertise is widely appreciated and its services are used worldwide by researchers in cellular and molecular biology. SIB will carry out work aimed at improving the enzyme information in all collaborating databases though jras 10 and 11, which it will coordinate. It will also make substantial contributions to all protein related activities in many other jras. |
| Universität zu Köln | UKOELN | The Universität zu Köln is one of the premier German institutions in the fields of protein biochemistry and genetics. In Prof. Schomburg's group at the Institut für Biochemie research is performed in the areas of enzymology, structural biochemistry and bioinformatics. The Institut für Biochemie is also responsible for the development, maintenance and curation of the BRENDA enzyme function database. The enzyme information system BRENDA (www.brenda.uni-koeln.de), started in 1987, is the world's most comprehensive enzyme function and property database and is made available to the scientific community via a complex query system on the Internet and is curated with close links to the user community. The BRENDA site registers more than 2 million hits per month and is queried by ca. 1000 different scientists per day. The group is also actively involved in research on enzyme function. The contribution of the Universität zu Köln will rely on its long-standing experience in development and maintenance of BRENDA as well as on its active involvement in standardisation of biochemical terminology and promotion of recommended scientific nomenclature. The development of the database profits from the large research community at the University. UKOELN's primary role in the project will be in the BRENDA databases developments through jras 12 and 13, which it will coordinate. It will also contribute to other enzyme related activities. The work at the University of Cologne is all supervised by the University of Cologne, but the work in jra12 and jra13 is organisationally carried out in three different ways.
The BRENDA database and staff moved from the University of Cologne to the Technical University of Braunschweig at the end of Year 1 of the FELICS project. Accordingly, with effect from Mar 1st 2007, The Technical University of Braunschweig took over the FELICS contractual rights and obligations of the University of Cologne. |
| European Patent Office | EPO | The European Patent Office (EPO) grants European patents for the contracting states to the European Patent Convention (EPC). It is the executive arm of the European Patent Organisation, an intergovernmental body set up under the EPC, whose members are the EPC contracting states. Published patent applications and granted patents contain a wealth of information on the latest advances in all technical fields. Biotechnological information is made available free of charge as part of a collaboration between the European Bioinformatics Institute and the EPO. Sequences disclosed in patent applications currently represent 2,3 million entries in the EMBL database. The EPO will coordinate jras 14 and 15 in the capture, organisation and standardisation of patent data and will contribute to jra06 by making patent data on chemical entities available. |
| The Technical University of Braunschweig |
TUBS | With effect from March 1st 2007, the Technical University of Braunschweig has been responsible for the development, maintenance and curation of the BRENDA enzyme function database. Prof Schomburg transferred from the University of Cologne to University of Braunschweig. The work at the University of Braunschweig is all supervised by the University of Braunschweig, but the work in jra12 and jra13 is organisationally carried out in three different ways. 5a TUBS is the overall leader 3b Enzymeta (third party Contractor) is an organisation which has been established to employ experienced staff essential to the project who, under German legislation, cannot be employed directly by the University. 5c Subcontracts with External Experts: freelance consultants who work from home extracting information from the scientific literature. The work of 5b Enzymeta (Third Party Contractor) and the 5c Subcontracted External Experts will be unaffected by the transfer of the FELICS contract to the University of Braunschweig. |
