News Articles

Germany Joins Instruct-ERIC as a Member

Researchers in Germany can now receive funded access to structural biology technology and services across Europe, as Germany is now a member of Instruct-ERIC.  Starting 2024, Germany has become the 17th member of the structural biology research infrastructure consortium, Instruct-ERIC.  Bettina Stark-Watzinger, Germany’s Federal Minister of Education and Research, emphasised: “The rapid and successful development of active substances against the SARS-CoV-2 virus i...

Extra hands-on cryo-FIB lamella preparation and cryo-ET workshop!

Because the 2023 edition was heavily oversubscribed and we could not place everyone that was interested, iNEXT-Discovery decided to organise a second version of the very successful "cryo-FIB lamella preparation & cryo-Electron Tomography" workshop! Four participating Electron Microscopy facilities, CBI, EMBL-HD, DIAMOND and CEITEC, combine forces in a genuine hybrid event with online morning lectures for all participants, followed by on-site practicals. All supervised by specialists of cour...

ARIA Release: 2.17.4

ARIA (Access to Research Infrastructure Administration) was established by Instruct-ERIC to enhance the access proposal process, making it simpler for researchers to submit proposals and access integrated structural biology technologies and services. The ARIA development team continues to work hard to update and progress the system, whilst adapting it to the ever-changing needs of the global structural biology community, as well as a host of Horizon Europe projects. The latest release, 2.17.0 &...

FHERITALE Kick Off Meeting

The new Horizon Europe project, FHERITALE, kicked off in January 2024 at a meeting in Florence. The FHERITALE project seeks to provide the European research community with a comprehensive overview of technologies and services relevant to understanding the impact of artificial materials on health, food and the environment. Launched on January 16-17, 2024, the project brings together four ESFRI research infrastructures to deliver a rundown of what the research community requires to investigate t...

Instruct-ERIC in EOSC-Life: A Summary

The EOSC-Life project brought together 13 Life Science RIs to create an open, digital and collaborative space for data resources and data processing workflows in the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). Find out more about Instruct’s wider EOSC activities here. One aim of the EOSC-Life project was to support innovative projects that would promote the development of an open digital space for the life sciences. To this end, a series of open calls were organised to select and support pilot p...

Instruct-ERIC Funded Access Call to Reopen 8 January

The Instruct-ERIC funded access call will reopen 8 January. Structural biology researchers from member countries and organisations can receive funded access to services and technologies. Researchers from outside our member countries and organisations can still apply for self-funded access. Researchers worldwide can also take advantage of our partner access projects, such as canSERV or iNEXT-Discovery, to receive funded access to structural biology services for thematic projects. Instruct Goes...

Glacios 2 Cryo-TEM installed at CEITEC Instruct Centre in Czech Republic

A new 200kV (scanning-)transmission electron microscope for life-science applications has been installed at Cryo-electron microscopy core facility (CEMCOF), part of the CEITEC facility in Instruct-CZ. The Glacios 2 (ThermoScientific) microscope will be available exclusively for cryo-electron microscopy, including efficient screening of cryo-EM samples, single particle data acquisition, cryo-electron tomography data acquisition, cryo-STEM imaging and tomography. The single particle cryo-EM data c...

Instruct-Image Competition Winners Announced

Instruct-ERIC is delighted to announce the winners of its image competition, Razvan Borza of the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam, and Joshua White of the Astbury Centre at University of Leeds! The winning images are shown below, and can also be seen on the Instruct website homepage.   Razvan Borza Razvan is a PhD student at NKI – their stunning image of Proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) on DNA (PDB - 7RPX) was made in Blender 3.6. You can see more on Razvan&rsqu...

Fragment-Screen Study Develops New RNA-targetting Tool for Drug Discovery

Fragment-based screening is becoming an increasingly effective tool for drug discovery, and is the basis of the Horizon Europe project, Fragment-Screen, coordinated by Instruct-ERIC.A team from project partner Goethe University recently conducted a fragment screening study on SARS-CoV-2 ligand fragment libraries. They compared two libraries, to identify how efficiently these fragments could bind to target RNA residues.The results indicate that of the hundreds of fragments in both libraries, many...

UEF Distinguished Professor Frank Sobott joins University of Eastern Finland from University of Leeds

Frank Sobott, a renowned Chair in Biomolecular Mass Spectrometry at the University of Leeds (part of Instruct-UK), is starting as a new University of Eastern Finland (part of Instruct-FI) Distinguished Professor, UEFDiPro, at the Department of Chemistry in November 2023. He will bring a touch of international excellence to the department’s mass spectrometry research. Frank Sobott will be involved in research that utilises the world-class high-resolution mass spectrometry instruments avail...

Structure Journal - The Next Decade in Structural Biology

As a celebration of the 30th anniversary of Structure, structural biologists were asked about their expectations on how their respective fields are likely to develop in the next ten years. This included input on a variety of structural biology disciplines, including Cryo-EM and Cryo-ET, MicroED, and continuing AI developments. Martin Walsh of Diamond Light Source (part of Instruct-UK) outlined the ever-increasing capability of macromolecular crystallography and other X-ray techniques, driven by...

Focus on: Instruct-ERIC Internships

Instruct-ERIC has held 16 internship calls since 2013, providing a platform for early career researchers to get hands on training and experience in new laboratories, working with new technologies and colleagues. This includes remote internships during the COVID-19 pandemic. These three-six month internships have been invaluable for many researchers, who opened up their skillset in integrated structural biology. It has also been a fantastic way for the home and host laboratories to interact, eng...

Personal Statement by Harald Schwalbe, Director of Instruct-ERIC.

As Director of the European research infrastructure consortium for integrated structural biology, Instruct-ERIC, and as professor of Goethe-University Frankfurt, I wish to make the following statement: On October 7th, 2023, Hamas terrorists carried out an unprecedented and brutal attack. The attack included the abduction of 240 civilians of all ages, ethnic groups & nationalities into Gaza. These events leave me truly heartbroken. Instruct has 15 member states and 1 member organisation. Is...

Final iNEXT-Discovery Annual Consortium Meeting!

Our Czech partner CEITEC in Brno is organising their iNEXT-Discovery Annual Consortium Meeting to take place from June 10-12 2024. The event will include several scientific sessions with presentations from keynotes, partners, users and regional structural biologists, and is followed immediately by the 4th Symposium on Recent Advances in Cryo-EM on June 12 and 13. Together with the iNEXT-Discovery Executive Board, the local organising team is preparing a very exciting program with pr...

canSERV Open Call

The canSERV Call for Transnational Service Provision is now open. Running until 4 January 2024, the call offers the opportunity for researchers to apply to a portfolio of services offered by canSERV to address the research needs of the entire oncology developmental pipeline.   Apply Here   The research project: Can vary from basic discovery science to translational science and translation into personalised oncology. Is expected to address at least one of the four strategic goa...

Annual Report 2022

The Instruct-ERIC Annual Report 2022 has been published. The report outlines updates from centres, facilities and members, as well as science highlights, training programmes, and of course the Instruct Biennial Structural Biology Conference.   Download the Annual Report 2022   In addition to the full report document, take a look through the annual highlights from each of our members, including new technology, events and workshops run by the facilities, and the wider collaboration a...

Statement on Israel

The Instruct-ERIC community is heartbroken by the events unfolding in Israel, and our thoughts are with all people in the region over the last days. Israel is a founding member of Instruct-ERIC. The Instruct-IL centre is made up of the Centre for Structural Proteomics at the Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS), and the Centre for Bioinformatics in University of Tel Aviv. The structural biology teams in the facilities in Israel have provided access to many international researchers over the year...

Instruct-ERIC Discusses Global Solutions at Spanish Presidency Event on Research Infrastructures

The Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU held a conference in Tenerife, bringing together research infrastructures from across the world to discuss the global dimension and sustainability of Research Infrastructures. This conference was an opportunity for Instruct-ERIC to provide its experience of global research infrastructure provision and partnerships, whilst learning from our colleagues the latest developments in international collaboration, and ongoing research sustainability. The ...

Stephen Cusack: EMBL Grenoble

One of the great benefits of working for Instruct is the opportunity to work with fantastic people whose expertise and dedication makes it possible to deliver something as complex as a distributed infrastructure to scientists across the world.   Stephen Cusack pictured at the Instruct starting ceremony in 2012 (front row, far right).   During the preparatory phase in 2008, the team setting up the infrastructure needed to create a framework to offer the structural biology communit...

UK Rejoins Horizon Europe and Diamond Light Source Receives £500m in Funding: A Week in Instruct-UK

The UK has announced that it will be rejoining the Horizon research scheme. This follows the news earlier this week that Diamond Light Source has received additional funding for upgrades from the UK government; both significant developments for the UK structural biology community. The country’s absence from the Horizon programme has led to some uncertainties to the extent that UK-based institutions could be involved with Horizon Europe projects. The engagement and involvement with scient...

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