Strategically developed to bring together top-notch facilities and cutting-edge research, reaching critical mass. The platforms also provide advanced services to academic or private researchers.

• Genotyping: The Genotyping Platform is built around the capabilities in CIC bioGUNE (platform co-ordinator), the University of the Basque Country, and companies, among which a bioinformatics one, and offers the most advanced technologies to the international community. This platform has been used, for example, to study the haplotypic diversity of the Basque autochthonous population and compare it with others described by the HapMap consortium (http://www.hapmap.org/). Other projects are studying SNPs association to diseases or genetic involvement in diabetes mellitus type I, multiple esclerosis, NASH, or Alzheimer. The capabilities in Functional Genomics and the study of gene function at a large scale are complemented by a Gene silencing platform based around RNA interference (RNAi), animal models and cell lines.

• HUPO: the Human Proteome Organisation (http://www.hupo.org/) is an international consortium that promotes the development of proteomics research, facilitates collaborations, and has the ultimate goal of identifying all proteins involved in a particular biological process and the interactions between them. BioBasque participates through a consortium led by CIC bioGUNE, which is also the Spanish representative in HUPO. The main asset is the existence of experienced researchers and a state-of-the-art, comprehensive Proteomics platform.

• Structural Biology: located in CIC bioGUNE, it is a singular facility that includes NMR, protein crystallisation, X-ray and electronic microscopy. The platform allows the study of protein complexes (and other molecules such as RNA and lipids), to observe molecular engines with universal biological functions at work, or be used to improve the stability or other characteristics of commercially interesting enzymes.

• Biosurfaces: multicentre platform that co-ordinates technologies, equipment and expertise to understand and predict the interactions of living cells with materials of diverse origin. It involves CIC biomaGUNE, the university UPV/EHU and several Technology Centres (Cidetec, Inasmet), and works towards applications ranging from biosensors to integrated medical nanosystems to perform complex repair actions at the cellular level.

• Biobank: an institution-wide biological bank that integrates samples from the health system and the UPV/EHU, managed by BIOEF. The biobank is a key asset for biomedical research, as it is complemented by the Basque Blood Service Centre, population databases, well established cohorts and epidemiological studies. The biobank is organised around different types of samples (DNA, tumours, cells and tissues, etc.), and it includes a singular Brain Bank established at the university, one of 8 in Europe and the United States dedicated to research.

• Future Molecular Imaging Unit: The CIC biomaGUNE Molecular Imaging Unit is currently being designed. When it becomes fully operational in 2008, it will boost CIC biomaGUNE´s research and service provision capacity as well as its relationship with CIC bioGUNE. The budget for this Molecular Imaging Unit for 2006-2010 is €9.5 million, of which almost €3 million will be used to purchase technology equipment. The sum of its technologies (SPECT, PET, MRI, FLUORESCENCE) will make this new Molecular Imaging Unit, which will use small animals, the largest technology platform created to date, not just in the Basque Country but also in Spain as a whole. It will focus mainly on the development of new imaging techniques for monitoring controlled drug delivery devices, personalised treatment and comparison diagnosis techniques, among other applications.