User:Wfecke

EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC

The European Research Infrastructure Consortium of Open Screening Platforms for Chemical Biology
EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC, the European Infrastructure of Open Screening Platforms for Chemical Biology, is a centrally coordinated consortium of partner institutions for supporting basic and applied research and development (R&D) in the field of Chemical Biology. It serves the community´s infrastructure needs for the development of novel bioactive chemical compounds. It provides access to a central collection of small molecules for high-throughput screening (HTS), a central database archiving data from all supported projects, and a network of expert centers distributed over Europe for experimental execution of the projects. EU-OPENSCREEN was founded by seven European member states and one observer state in 2018, under the legal framework of a European Research Infrastructure Consortium. The current Director-General of EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC is Dr. Wolfgang Fecke, who started his five-year term on 12. April 2018. EU-OPENSCREEN is listed as ‘Landmark’ on the roadmap of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI)1,2 and is a member of the ERIC-Forum3.

1.1 Rational
Chemical Biology is an interdisciplinary research field involving the application of chemical techniques and analysis to the study and manipulation of biological systems. One major route for the targeted discovery of bioactive chemical substances, also termed chemical probes or chemical tool compounds, is the systematic empirical screening of large compound collections with dedicated bioassays designed to respond with a robust signal to an anticipated observable biological activity. Such screening programs provide hit compounds as entry points for further modification (hit-to-lead) towards sophisticated research tools and potential products like e.g. pharmaceutical drugs. This approach, typical of industry, is technically and logistically demanding with respect to the necessary storage and maintenance of a compound collection (between ten thousand and several million substances), as well as rapid testing (high-throughput screening) with reasonable effort, automation and the necessary reliability. It requires large, dedicated facilities with expensive investments and experienced personnel. Chemical Biology research in academia and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) therefore depend on access to such research infrastructures (RI) which are only accessible in distinct places. Initially very much focused on disease-relevant biology and therapeutic applications, the research field of Chemical Biology developed into a much more general chemistry-driven approach to biology embracing every area of the Life Sciences from medicine over agriculture and farming, marine economy to environmental issues.

1.2 Origins
With the start of the 21st century, first reports on the systematic exploitation of small organic molecules applied to decipher fundamental biological processes came over from the US.4-6 Similar efforts in Europe´s academia immediately received much attention, fostering collaborations between chemistry and biology laboratories and the establishment of academic screening platforms of diverse size at selected institutions. However, considering the endless diversity of possible chemical structures and the broad spectrum of biological topics, individual platforms alone could not support comprehensively the needs of academic or small industrial users because the chemical diversity of their compound collections, along with their biological and technical capabilities, are limited and ‘big pharma’ platforms were not open to academic users. Pooling and coordination of public resources and expertise became therefore imperative. This situation triggered the formation of national networks in several countries such as the French Chimiothèque Nationale7 and Screening Center Nework8, the German ChemBioNet9, the Spanish ChemBioBank10, and several more. The large, NIH-funded Molecular Libraries Program (MLP)11 in USA founded in 2004 and operated until 2014 then set the scene with the ambitious goal of creating a small molecule probe for every human protein function and the immediate publication of results in the PubChem database for world-wide use. Infrastructure operation, however, is a long-term commitment and difficult to maintain for individual research institutions at a size of global competitiveness. Efforts in Europe to get funding from EU framework programs on research and innovation (I312, Integrated Infrastructure Initiatives of FP6 and FP7) were not successful but these formed a Europe-wide interest group of committed scientists and institutions with a mature common goal. Meanwhile, the EU recognized the importance of RIs in general for the future R&D and innovation in Europe, also in areas other than the classical physical sciences. EU member states created in 2004 a dedicated board to develop a roadmap for its plans for the coming 20 years: the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructure (ESFRI)1. ESFRI is driven by the EU member states (not the Commission) and these sent out to their science leaders the first calls for proposals to enter the European RI roadmap in 2005. A core group of two institutes of the German ChemBioNet (Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research HZI13, and Leibniz-Forschungsinstitut für Molekulare Pharmakologie FMP14), that already operated a joint small compound collection and moderately sized screening facilities, submitted a proposal for the research field of Chemical Biology. Initially planned as a European Molecular Libraries Resource Centre with a focus on proving access to a dedicated large compound collection for screening, the proposal evolved into a refined concept for enabling users from academy and SMEs to develop chemical probes for biological questions and product discovery of their interest. EU-OPENSCREEN´s concept strongly builds on harnessing Europe´s unique expertise and knowledge in the field. It was accepted for the ESFRI roadmap in 2008. This milestone was celebrated with a first international European Chemical Biology Symposium (ECBS2008) in Barcelona which is since followed by a biannual series of conferences, each one organized by one of EU-OPENSCREEN´s partner national communities.

1.3 Establishment
Entry on the ESFRI roadmap made EU-OPENSCREEN eligible to seek funding through Framework Program 7 (FP7) from a competitive ESFRI-specific call for Research Infrastructure Preparatory-Phase-Projects (PPP). EU-OPENSCREEN received a 3-year funding with 3.6 Mio € to develop a sound business plan for implementation and operation of the RI. Coordinator was Dr. Ronald Frank of HZI who moved to FMP for this task, supported by Dr. Anne Höner, EU-liaison officer of FMP as project manager, later complemented by Dr. Bahne Stechmann as scientific assistant, and Martin McLean as secretary. The PPP consortium, already well interconnected though its previous activities, finally included institutions from 16 European countries: AT (CeMM in Vienna), BE (VIB in Leuven), CZ (IMG in Prague), DE (FMP + HZI + MDC in Berlin), DK (DTU in Kopenhagen), ES (PCB in Barcelona), FI (FIMM in Helsinki), FR (CNRS with Univ. Strasbourg and Montpellier), GR (NCSR in Athens), HU (RCNS in Budapest), IT (CISI in Milano + IRBM in Rome), NL (NKI in Amsterdam), NO (Univ. Oslo), PO (IMB in Lodz), RO (Univ. Timisoara), SE (Univ. Umeå); EMBO-EMBL was partner through the EBI in Hinxton. The PPP work packages covered issues such as the chemical, biological, and technical aspects of the future physical infrastructure, the database, operational standardization, training, legal, intellectual property, financial and governance aspects of the RI, the overall strategy and dissemination, as well as the formal administration of the PPP. The PPP dissemination activities stimulated the formation and/or consolidation of national chemical biology communities in all partner countries: NOR-OPENSCREEN15, Swedish Chemical Biology Consortium16, Drug Discovery and Chemical Biology network Finland17, Danish Chemical Biology Initiative, Dutch Chemical Library Program, ChemBioNet9 Germany, POL-OPENSCREEN18, OPENSCREEN-GR, Hungarian Chemical Biology Net, CZ-OPENSCREEN and Czech ChemGen19, Austrian PLACEBO Project, Spanish ChemBioBank10, French Chimiothèque Nationale7 and Réseau Nationale de Criblage (FR-OPENSCREEN now ChemBioFrance8), Romanian Chemical Biology Net, Flemish Network on Chemical Biology, Collezione Nazionale dei Composti Chimici e Centro Screening (CNCCS)20. Alongside the ESFRI process, individual countries established their own national RI roadmaps and EU-OPENSCREEN partners worked on becoming included into these to consolidate national support, prerequisite for governmental commitments towards ESRFI RIs. This was successful in the following countries: CZ, DE, DK, ES, FI, FR, NO. The PPP project ended initially in 11/2013 and delivered its business plan which proposed to establish a RI under the legal framework of an ERIC, a legal entity newly created by the Commission in 2009 and particularly suited for RIs that operate facilities at several sites in different countries (distributed RI). Ten countries and one international organization signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to commit for entry into negotiation for the establishment of the European Research Infrastructure of Open Screening Platforms for Chemical Biology (CZ, DE, ES, FI, FR, GR, HU, NO, PO, RO & EMBL). Representatives of these then formed a Transition Committee (TC) under the guidance of Germany to help EU-OPENSCREEN towards its implementation. Germany offered to become host country and to support the central office to be located in Berlin, which was unanimously adopted by the TC. Dr. Philip Gribbon from ScreeningPort at Fraunhofer IME Institute in Hamburg21, Germany, took the helm for the EU-OPENSCREEN consortium, supported by a team in Berlin made of Dr. Katja Herzog, Dr. Philip Brennecke, Dr. Bahne Stechmann as scientific assistants, and Maren Kappe as office manager. Supported by an 18 months cost-neutral extension of the EU-PPP funding, the TC then developed the ERIC-statutes, Rules of Operation, advanced technical description, and a financing model for the future EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC. Peer-review guided accreditations of future partner sites for screening, chemistry, compound profiling, and database tasks were completed. The EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC was then officially founded in April 2018 with CZ, DE ES, FI, LT, NO, PO as founding member states and DK as observer. This milestone was celebrated in Berlin on 25. September 2018 with the delivery of the ERIC insignia by Jean-Eric Paquet, Director-General of Directorate Research and Innovation of the European Commission. The new ESFRI roadmap 20182 now lists EU-OPENSCREEN as landmark. The ESFRI Landmarks are RIs that became fully implemented or reached an advanced implementation phase under the Roadmap, and that represent major elements of competitiveness of the European Research Area (ERA).

1.4 Operational history
EU-OPENSCREEN's partner sites were all operational within their institutional R&D and national networks long before the ERIC foundation. They offer routine services to local and external researchers, some of them already since decades. Collectively, they have experience from several hundreds of screening and probe development projects. Partner sites for EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC were accredited based on their peer-reviewed expertise, know-how, and instrumental capacities. Capitalizing on that expertise, the partners of the PPP advanced important aspects of the future workflow of RI services: A) Development of a convincing concept for the design and acquisition of the compound collection. B) Agreement on operational standards for compound handling and screening. C) Building the European Chemical Biology Database (ECBD). D) Piloting the full future workflow. For a pilot study, 11 larger screening facilities of EU-OPENSCREEN (Berlin, Braunschweig, Rome, Vienna, Helsinki, Prague, Stockholm, Umea, Granada, Oss/NL, Rehovot/IL) received each 2500 compounds from a pilot compound collection and performed 6 screening projects each. These test data sets from the pilot screening were loaded to the ECBD in order to evaluate database, interface and loader script functionality. The biannual European Chemical Biology Symposia (Barcelona 2008; Prague 2010; Vienna 2012; Berlin 2015; Budapest 2017; Madrid 2019) became a prime event for interacting with the European and Global Chemical Biology community. The Prague conference was the event where the idea of an International Chemical Biology Society (ICBS)22 was born which became officially inaugurated in 2011 at its meeting in Kansas, USA. The Berlin conference in 2015 was held together with the ICBS and the Madrid conference in 2019 together with EuCheMS, the European Chemical Society. EU-OPENSCREEN regularly contributed to many other conferences, roadshows and workshops. EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC is now in the construction phase. Procurement of instruments and compound collections, hiring personnel for the Central Hub, and furnishing the premises are underway. Full operation is planned for 1/2020.

2.1 Overall focus and mission
EU‐OPENSCREEN will progress the discovery of biologically active substances in all areas of the Life Sciences for the elucidation of the molecular mechanisms of complex biological phenomena by providing transnational open access to the most advanced technologies, chemical and biological resources, and expertise, and by harnessing the rich chemistry knowledge of Europe in a common compound collection. The biologically active substances will be used primarily as chemical probes to complement other genetic and molecular biology methods and enable researchers to investigate the molecular mechanisms of physiological and pathological processes, many of which can only be properly studied with these chemical tools. In this way, EU-OPENSCREEN will ultimately promote the availability of safe and efficacious chemical products for unmet needs in medicine, nutrition, agriculture, environment.

2.2 The compound collection
A core resource offered by EU-OPENSCREEN is the collection of chemical compounds to be used in all supported screening projects: the European Chemical Biology Library ECBL. It is planned to start with 100.000 commercial compounds (commercial collection) plus a growing collection of synthetic and natural substances donated by chemists from Europe and all over the world (academic collection). Selection of these for inclusion into the ECBL follows strict criteria for purity, reactivity, and novelty, as established during the PPP project. A process for selecting the commercial part of the ECBL from the vast millions of available structures offered by many suppliers was achieved in a team effort by five European expert centers for molecular design during the PPP and is published23. The physical collection is hosted, managed and maintained at the headquarter in Berlin where a Central Compound Management Facility CCMF operates suitable instrumentation and personnel that ensures proper handling, characterization and distribution to the screening partner sites. EU-OPENSCREEN will quality-control all compounds and test them in a panel of about 20 diverse and generic assays to determine their physical properties (e.g. solubility, fluorescence, redox activity) and basic behavior on cellular processes (e.g. cell morphology and growth). The information from this compound profiling is immediately deposited in the ECBD and released to the public according to agreed rules.

2.3 Assay development & Screening
Major activities of the RI are concerned with the systematic screening of the EU-OPENSCREEN compound collection both to give biologist access to specific bioactive molecules for their studies and also to populate the database with increasing valuable information on the bioactivities of all compounds in the collection. Proposals for tool/probe development projects from biologists that aim to screen the EU-OPENSCREEN compound collection with assays based on their biological targets of interest must be evaluated by external reviewers according to criteria of scientific quality, novelty, as well as technical feasibility. Once approved, EU-OPENSCREEN assists in the miniaturisation and optimisation of the biological assay for HTS by providing a small pilot compound collection of about 5.000 compounds. Screening of the whole EU-OPENSCREEN compound collection will then be carried out at and with the help of an affiliated screening platform at an appropriate partner site. Biology users are expected to come from very diverse biological disciplines and their targets will be of very different nature, such as distinct characterized biomolecules, cellular morphologies, signals from biological pathways or reporter genes, and even 3D-cell cultures or tissue. EU-OPENSCREEN´s network of partner sites and distributed facilities therefore embraces institutes from across Europe and is comprehensively covering expertise in respective diverse areas of biology and technology. Data generated by the screening campaigns are shared with the biology user and respective donators of academic compounds. A curated and validated version of the data is first deposited for up to three years in in a confidential sector of the central database.

2.4 Medicinal Chemistry
High‐throughput screening experiments initially generate a list of hit compounds with biological activities that rarely fulfil all criteria for a true tool compound. For selected projects, EU-OPENSCREEN provides additional follow-up services: triage of hit series to make them more potent (i.e. usable at lower concentrations, fewer unspecific side effects) or to modify them with application-specific functional groups (e.g. fluorescent dyes, affinity tags). The chemistry services are ideally carried out by the compound providing chemist or one of EUOPENSCREEN´s accredited chemistry groups. The chemist who donated a compound and the biologist as owner of the target/assay both have first right of refusal for entering into a continuing collaboration.

2.5 The database
All data generated through QC/bioprofiling and screening activities is published in EU-OPENSCREEN’s open-access database ECBD (European Chemical Biology Database). The database allows for a staged disclosure and holds both public and confidential proprietary data with an optional embargo period (i.e. delayed publication of data). EU-OPENSCREEN provides well-annotated, standardized and controlled datasets with comprehensive coverage of chemical and biological space which, as a result of the rational design of the commercial sourced set and access to the unique compounds found in the academic collections of Europe, complements and extends upon existing public bioactivity data sets (e.g. MLP24 and NCATS25 programs of the US National Institutes of Health). Large-scale open-access data provides the basis for computational data integration to obtain a systematic view, and allows for prediction of drug-target interactions and networks as well as of adverse effects and drug combinations. ECBD serves as the publicly accessible database and collaborative data sharing environment for all EU-OPENSCREEN generated data, combining profiling results, quality controlled primary screening results, confirmatory assays, assay protocols, and chemical structure information. It is designed to support the requirements of both academia (encouraging exchange of knowledge) and industry (allowing suitable protection of intellectual property, IP) and will therefore allow authorized users to view their own private data in combination with public data. A pilot version of the ECBD was built during the PPP by partner EMBL-EBI26 in Hinxton, UK, who already operates another major Chemical Biology database ChEMBL27. The final site for the ECBD is in Prague and is operated by CZ-OPENCREEN19 at the Institute of Molecular Genetics IMG.

2.6 Access Policy
E-OPENSCREEN is a research infrastructure which open to users from all of the world. The EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC is committed to apply an impartial and transparent access policy to facilitate the entry of the most promising projects onto the platforms by complying with the EU Access charter for Research Infrastructures.28 The Central Office serves as a single point of access for prospective users from the scientific community. All prospective users will be informed by the EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC Office of the scientific and technical, administrative and financial requirements which need to be met in order to access the infrastructure´s services. The Central Office explicitly supports prospective users to secure project funding. It (1) assists with preparations of grant applications with a special focus on transnational calls such as from EU framework programs; (2) acts as a contact point for individual researchers applying to e.g. the European Research Council ERC funding and helps to team up with the optimum partner site for cooperation; (3) engages with SME’s and industry to bridge the innovation gap and facilitates co-operations between Industry, academic users and partner sites; and (4) chaperon discussions with large-scale potential project funders, e.g. European Investment Fund, Gates Foundation, TB Alliance, or the Wellcome Trust. Different modes of access cover the three main user groups of the RI: assay providers (biologists), compound providers (chemists) and database users (data scientists). Excellent-driven access: Assay providing users will already have received a positive response from an external competitive grant review (e.g. EC, ERC, National funding programs, or internal institutional innovation schemes) that secured funds for project execution. It is EU-OPENSCREEN’s position that this upstream peer-review process will have established the underlying quality of the user’s project in terms of scientific excellence, novelty and impact. Furthermore, the drafting of users’ grant applications will normally have involved active input from EU-OPENSCREEN experts; this will ensure that the technical feasibility of projects is established. Compounds submitted to the collection by compound providing users will need to pass a set of defined quality criteria (e.g. minimal quantity; >90% purity; structural requirements; novelty and absence of reactive groups). An online portal will assist users to upload requested data. Market-driven and non-peer reviewed access: These projects are typically from smaller Europe-based biotechnology companies and academic spin-outs (SME’s) looking to initiate drug/product discovery programs around a novel target. All projects will be assessed for technical feasibility by the EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC Office and relevant partner sites. In the case of prospective users without funding in place, EU-OPENSCREEN will help SME’s to access financing instruments. Project execution costs, (including the compound collection replenishment fee) may be set at higher rates than excellence-driven research projects.

2.7 Education and training
Know-how of high-throughput screening and particularly the setup of respective bioassays is not widely taught in either chemistry or biology courses at universities. Training of master & PhD students, postdoctoral scientists and principal investigators in chemical biology and screening is offered and will help foster the next generation of European researchers and ensure optimal use of EU-OPENSCREEN. Training of potential users is also important to ensure a flow of suitable target assays. In the future, EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC partners might submit an action proposal to the EU Cooperation in Science and Technology COST29 funding organization on improving cooperation and developing best practice in assay developments for screening and chemical biology. Projects such as this COST action will help spread the know-how to submitters of targets to the RI so that they are better positioned to develop fit-for-purpose biological assays and reduce overall time needed for project prosecution. Moreover, such training will increase the competitiveness of the participating scientists for funding proposals.

2.8 IP and Data policy
When combining a compound and an assay to create a screening result, new foreground IP is generated. The EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC will not seek any ownership share of foreground IP covering screening results, novel assays or compound activities. However, it may claim IP if a novel invention is made which relates to its core operational role such as technology development (e.g. a new compound dispensing tool). When screening the commercial part of the collection, the assay provider and the partner sites will decide by contract how ownership of screening results is shared, in line with local rules and regulations. If an attractive hit comes from the academic part of the collection, the respective compound providers will share ownership of screening results with the assay providers and partner sites. Draft agreements between the EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC and the compound provide are available on request. ECBD is conceived as a globally accessible database of compound structures, bioactivities, and assay metadata, supporting the wider scientific community by adhering to principles of high data availability and scientific transparency. EU-OPENSCREEN, from its first conception on, supports the open access policy of the EU Commission by implementing FAIR principles of data management. As a default, confirmed screening and validated hit data are immediately deposited in the ECBD, initially in a private sector. Data will be made public after a 36-month embargo period in which the involved parties can secure IP and patenting.

3.1 Organisational structure
Central Office: At the core of EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC is the central office which is in charge of the administration (legal and financial), project management, organisation of the user access to the RI as well as of the organisation of the training and education offers. The EU-OPENSCREEN central office represents the one entry and contact point for all external users, be they chemists, biologists or else. The compound collection is also hosted here and distributed to the screening partner sites. The database is part of the central office and is, after a peer reviewed competition, currently being developed at the IMG in Prague which is also a screening partner site of the ERIC.

Partner Sites: As a ‘pan-European’ consortium, EU-OPENSCREEN aims to embrace many local service sites and thereby offer access to a wide range of expertise and instrumentation. The member countries propose partner sites which are evaluated and formally accredited by an external independent review based on expertise, performance and equipment/technology. These partner sites implement all experimental services (e.g. bioprofiling of the compound collection, assay adaptation, screening, synthetic chemistry) which are necessary for the probe development projects. These affiliated partner sites remain embedded in their host universities, public or private research institutions or private companies, and sign a service agreement with the EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC. All accredited partner sites are listed on the EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC website.

3.2 Membership
EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC is financed by its member countries which are committed to its operation. Full member countries appoint delegates to the Assembly of Members (AoM) and therefore have voting rights on strategic decisions. The AoM decides on the inclusion/termination of memberships. Observer countries are also formally part of EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC but their delegates to the AoM have no voting rights. Their financial commitment is reduced to 30% of their nominal membership fee. The purpose of holding an observer status is to allow for preparations before the country becomes a full member. Therefore, the observer status is limited to three years, with the possibility of extension. Founding members of EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC were the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Norway, Poland, and Spain. Denmark became full member on 1st January 2019 after having observer status in 2018.

EU-OPENSCREEN is committed to expand memberships to more countries and continues to support further national communities by its regional ambassadors in their efforts to engage their governments to join the ERIC.

3.3 Governance Structure
The Assembly of Members (AoM) is the highest and ultimate decision-making body by which the Members take collective decisions on strategic, scientific, technical and administrative matters relating to EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC and by which the overall direction and supervision of EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC is charged. ERIC members and observers are represented by delegates. ERIC Members hold one voting right each. The Operational Management Board is foreseen to be composed of three delegates appointed by the AoM. It should support the AoM in the supervision of EU-OPENCREEN ERIC activities but is currently not operational. The Scientific & Ethical Advisory Board (SEAB) is composed of up to five members who are independent of EU-OPENSCREEN and are appointed in their own right by the AoM. It has its own-rules-of-operation and provides independent advice and expertise to the AoM in any matters requested by the AoM. The Partner Site Forum comprises one representative from each accredited partner site. It advises and provides feedback to the Director General and the AoM. The objective of this forum is to take into consideration, and to protect the interests of, the partner sites within the consortium. It has its own-rules-of-operation and meets at least once a year.

3.4 Headquarter
The seat of the organization is in Berlin, Germany. The EU-OPENSCREEN central office and the Central Compound Management Facility CCMF are located on the second level in the Timoféef-Ressowsky-Building 87 at Campus-Buch, Robert-Rössle-Straße 10 in Berlin.

3.5 Director-General
The Director-General is the legal representative of the organization who implements the decisions of the AoM and has the day-to-day responsibilities of managing the RI. The Director General is appointed (and dismissed) by, and reports directly to, the AoM. The current Director-General is Dr. Wolfgang Fecke30, who was appointed on 12th April 2018.

3.6 Employees
The current team at the central office includes a scientific strategy officer, a finance officer, an office manager, a European relations and grant officer, two scientific project managers, and an administrative project manager; the team at the compound management facility includes a compound logistics manage, and a compound quality technician. A database developer and a curator for the EU-OPENSCREEN ECBD are working at the IMG in Prague.

3.7 Country and liaison offices
Member and Observer countries may nominate one partner site as their national node. National nodes usually serve as the primary contact points between an ERIC and the country’s local scientific communities as well as between the ERIC and the government/funding authorities of that country. This is a key element to strengthen the link between the national scientific community (users) and the distributed RI. These nodes shall build trust in the RI and will catalyze the participation of scientists on a national level. In the framework of the EU-OPENSCREEN DRIVE project, such an “ambassador” function is financially supported by the central office.

3.8 Infrastructure Partnerships
EU-OPENSCREEN is connected to other Life Sciences RIs from the ESFRI network. Participation in joint EU-funded cluster projects such as BioMedBridges31, EMBRIC32, or CORBEL33 strives towards a coordinated and streamlined access to services from all involved RIs.

3.9 Financing
The operation of the central office which includes staff salaries, costs for the ECBD, office equipment and maintenance etc., is jointly funded by all ERIC members. Costs are shared according to country size and GDP. The AoM recruits the managing Director General for the RI who recruits the staff for the headquarter. Costs for the laboratory equipment and compound libraries is paid for by the host country Germany. User fees: Services of the central office are free of charge except for a compound replenishment fee of 20 cents per compound for scientists from EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC member countries while the fee is double for scientists from non-member countries & industry. The fee includes also hit profiling activities. This so-called compound replenishing fee is required to maintain the compound collection and rebuy exhausted components. A pilot collection of 5.000 compounds for assay adaptation and hit estimation is provided for free, also to allow potential collaboration partners the validation of their scientific approach. The partner sites implement the experimental work for the selected EU-OPENSCREEN projects and in return are financially compensated for these services by the users. This project funding is expected to cover the expenses of consumables and the additional staff that the partner site needs for executing the EU-OPENSCREEN projects. The partner sites manage their staff independently. EU-OPENSCREEN aims at continuously raising additional project funding through own grant applications such as the current EU-funded DRIVE project34 which offers the financial means to fund twelve screening, six chemoproteomics and five medicinal chemistry projects.

Notes and references
1) ESFRI homepage

2) ESFRI Roadmap 2018; download from ESFRI homepage

3) Homepage of ERIC-Forum

4) Mitchison TJ (1994) Towards a pharmacological genetics. Chem. Biol. 1: 3-6.

5) Maier TU et al. (1999) Small molecule inhibitor of mitotic spindle bipolarity identified in a phenotype-based screen. Science 286: 971-974.

6) Schreiber SL (2003) The small-molecule approach to biology. Chem & Eng News 81: 51-61.

7) Homepage of French Chimiothèque Nationale

8) Homepage of ChemBioFrance

9) ChemBioNet homepage

10) Reference page for Spanish ChemBioBank

11) Austin CP et al (2004) NIH Molecular Libraries Initiative. Science 306: 1138-1139.

12) FP7-INFRASTRUCTURES-2007-1, I3 Guide for Applicants, Web download

13) HZI homepage

14) FMP homepage

15) NorOpenscreen homepage

16) Homepage of CBC Sweden

17) Homepage of DDCB Finland

18) PolOpenscreen Project

19) CZ-Openscreen homepage

20) Homepage of Italian CNCCS

21) Homepage of Fraunhofer ScreeningPort Hamburg

22) Homepage of the International Chemical Biology Society

23) Horvath D et al. (2014) Design of a general-purpose European compound screening library for EU-OPENSCREEN. ChemMedChem 9: 2309-2326.

24) Startpage of ChemBank database at Broad Institute

25) Homepage of National Centre for Advancement of Translational Sciences at NIH

26) Homepage of European Bioinformatics Institute

27) Startpage of chEMBL-database

28) Charter for Access to European Research Infrastructures. Download from

29) Homepage of COST funding organization

30) LinkedIn Profile of Wolfgang Fecke

31) Homepage of BioMedBridges project

32) Homepage of European Marine Biology Infrastructure Cluster project EMBRIC

33) Homepage of EU CORBEL infrastructure project

34) Homepage of EU-OPENSCREEN´s DRIVE project