Angelika Schnieke and José María Mato,
in CIC bioGUNE

On January 29th, the Center for Cooperative Research in Biosciences, CIC bioGUNE, celebrated its fifth anniversary. CIC bioGUNE has proven it is fully integrated in the scientific community and acknowledged as a centre of attraction for professionals from around the globe. One third or its more than 120 researchers represent a wide range of nationalities from 15 European, North and Latin American and Asian countries.

Its highly positive activity record accounts for more than 120 scientific papers (with an average impact factor of 6) and 9 patents. Two of them have given rise to two products, TUBEs and owl liver, marketed by a North American and a Basque company respectively. In addition, the centre has given rise to 2 specific spin-offs (OWL Genomics, MDRenal) and has promoted two additional companies (Embryomics and Bioftalmik). Leeway, cutting-edge equipment and translational research-oriented scientific programmes are some key fundamentals leading to these results.

According to Prof. José María Mato, General Director of the centre, former President of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and National Research Prize in Medicine, CIC bioGUNE aims to become a “Research Centre of Excellence” and to “continue contributing to the biotech business”.

CIC bioGUNE state-of-the-art facilities have a total surface of 8,300 m2 represent an investment of 35 million euro. These competitive infrastructures include a powerful Structural Biology Unit, equipped with high performance equipment for Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction, as well as different technological platforms for genome, proteome and metabolome analysis among others.

Researchers at CIC bioGUNE have carried out many R&D projects funded by different administrations (Basque, Spanish and European) for more than 80 million euro. Moreover, they are actively involved in national scientific networks such as Consolider-Ingenio (promoting large Spanish research groups), ProteoRed (National network to coordinate, integrate and develop proteomics infrastructures) or Ciberhed (Biomedical Research Networking Center in the Liver and Digestive Diseases area).

Furthermore, its participation in relevant forums in the international arena such as HUPO (Human Proteome Organisation, fostering international proteomic initiatives to better understand human diseases), COST (instrument supporting cooperation amongst scientists and researchers across Europe) or Inproteolys (European Network on Intracellular Proteolysis Research) is particularly outstanding.

Last January 29th, CIC bioGUNE commemorated its anniversary with a plenary lecture by the German scientist Angelika Schnieke, who holds the chair of Livestock Biotechnology at the Technical University of Munich in Germany. She was part of the research team involved in cloning Dolly the sheep in 1996 while working at PPL Therapeutics in Edinburgh (UK).