Infrafrontier - Mouse models and phenotyping data for the European biomedical research community

Abstract

It is clear that this tremendous task cannot be fulfilled by individual research facilities or on the national level alone. This is the rationale for the European project Infrafrontier (The European infrastructure for phenotyping and archiving of model mammalian genomes, www.infrafrontier.eu), which is coordinated at the Helmholtz Zentrum München by Prof. Hrabé de Angelis. Infrafrontier is on the European roadmap for research infrastructures of ESFRI (European Strategy Forum for Research Infrastructures, http://www.cordis.europa.eu/esfri) and receives funding from the EC’s Seventh Framework Program. It will organise a pan-European research infrastructure to increase the capacities for systemic phenotyping and archiving of mouse models. The Infrafrontier consortium currently contains 22 partners (representing 14 phenotyping and archiving centres, 1 bioinformatics institute and 12 European ministries and funding agencies) from 10 different European countries. Six new partners will join Infrafrontier in the near future, extending the project to Austria, Czech Republic and Canada.