Research axis Vienna-Bratislava strengthened

infografika projektu CAPSID

CAPSID research project lays foundation for cross-border virology research

  • Research partners: Vienna BioCenter Core Facilities in Vienna (VBCF) and the Biomedical Research Center of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava (BMC SAV)
  • Achievements: seminar speaker series – CAPSID seminars, virology conference 2019, protein production workshop 2020, virology database, and sustainable cross-border collaboration.

Joint research without borders

With the successful completion of the EU-funded CAPSID project, the foundation for closer collaboration among biomedical research centers in the Slovak-Austrian border region has been laid over the past three years, despite constraints due to the coronal pandemic. Specifically, the VBCF in Vienna and the BMC SAV in Bratislava had joined forces with 11 project partners to enhance scientific collaboration in the region and the international visibility of the cross-border virological and biomedical research community.

An international research community

Periodical seminars devoted to cutting-edge biomedical research raised attention of actively participating young scientists and students. Bringing together the renowned scientists all over the world has become an important part of SK-AT scientific biomedical community, an inspiring place for discussions, and thus CAPSID seminars became Thursday’s tradition in our cross-border region.

A joint expert conference on virology research in Bratislava in February 2019 brought together international scientists from all disciplines of virology research. Prof. Christian Drosten (Charité Berlin) was one of the keynote speakers, warning of a possible SARS pandemic before it even happened. The conference raised international awareness of cutting-edge virology research in the border region and enabled participants to exchange scientific ideas and establish new collaborations.

The next event, the protein production workshop brought young scientist and student together again in 2020 with a success, while raised awareness of potential services being available for scientific community in our SK-AT cross-border region.

A virology database

A state-of-the-art scientific virology database provides information and protocols for viral protein production. The platform has been made available free of charge to universities, research institutes, biotech companies and start-ups for research activities in a first open access phase starting at the end of 2020. All interested parties are encouraged to use the protocols of the database for their research, which can be accessed on the project website (https://capsid.vbcf.ac.at/wiki/). Improvements and extensions of the existing protocols can be entered via the comment function.

A long-term and sustainable cooperation

On the occasion of the successful completion of the CAPSID project, the VBCF and the BMC SAV signed a final declaration. In it, both project partners committed, through joint seminars, research exchanges and work, and coordinated third-party funding proposals, to establish a sustainable cooperation in the cross-border region beyond the project duration.

 

Project Key Data:

  • Project name: CAPSID – Scientific capacity building in biomedical research through scientific exchange and joint development of research services.
  • Program: Interreg V-A Slovakia-Austria
  • Duration: July 2018 until June 2021
  • Volume: 571.000 €
  • Project partners:

– Vienna BioCenter Core Facilities, Vienna

– Biomedical Research Center of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava

For more information on the project, visit https://capsid.vbcf.ac.at/

 

The project was co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) within the framework of the Interreg V-A Slovakia-Austria program.