• BSC, CRG, and IRB sign a collaboration agreement for five years that will promote Barcelona as a world leader in computational biology.
• The goals of this joint programme are to retain the critical mass of researchers, to attract talent, and to boost computational biology.
• The team includes ten well-known researchers headed by Modesto Orozco (IRB), Roderic Guigó (CRG), and David Torrents (BSC).

Barcelona, 20th of February 2014.- The Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), and the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) launch a Joint BSC-CRG-IRB Programme in Computational Biology for a period of five years and renewable every three years. These three institutes are Severo Ochoa Centres of Excellence and nodes of the Spanish Bioinformatics Network. Their long-term expertise and research quality will turn Barcelona into one of the most outstanding clusters worldwide.

The programme is headed by Modesto Orozco (IRB), Roderic Guigó (CRG) and David Torrents (BSC), and comprises 10 research groups from these three centres.

Computational biology is a fundamental pillar of science and a key research field. In order to compete with the most innovative research, it is crucial to join critical mass and to disseminate research results. This programme will provide researchers with unique computational and experimental resources to tackle complex biological problems, to fight diseases, and to attract the best researchers worldwide to Barcelona. The research lines range from computational biochemistry to computational biology and biomedicine.

Marenostrum supercomputer, at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center

IRB and CRG will offer 10 scientific platforms, including the Experimental Laboratory hosted by IRB, and will provide the link to experimental biologists. BSC offers access to computing resources, such as the MareNostrum supercomputer, one of the most powerful machines in Europe and part of the PRACE Research Infrastructure.

The programme is supported by yearly funding of 300,000€, provided in equal parts by the three institutes. It will be supervised by an external advisory scientific committee that will evaluate its activity. The programme also includes an internal scientific committee composed by two representatives from each centre that will coordinate and supervise its activities.

For further information:
Juan Manuel Sarasua - juan.sarasua [at] crg.eu - Tel. +34 93 316 01 59 / +34 607 611 789
Press Office – Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG)
Barcelona, Spain