Periodic Reporting for period 3 - EU-OPENSCREEN-DRIVE (Ensuring long-term sustainability of excellence in chemical biology within Europe and beyond)
Reporting period: 2022-04-01 to 2023-10-31
EU-OPENSCREEN (EU-OS), the distributed European Research Infrastructure (RI) for chemical biology, manages access to high-throughput screening and chemistry facilities and operates a common database and a central compound management facility. EU-OS facilitates world-class research by researchers from academia and industry in chemical biology and early drug discovery. EU-OS makes the rich chemical knowledge of individual chemists across Europe openly available to enable systematic studies of the bioactivities of these compounds, which could in turn lead to new insights into their potential application as therapeutics or chemical probes. After intellectual property rights (IPR) are considered from the perspectives of all stakeholders involved, all results will eventually become available to the public. EU-OS therefore plays an increasingly important role not only in basic research but also in facilitating drug discovery programs in Europe. Following the Long-term Sustainability Action Plan of the EC and ESFRI, EU-OS-DRIVE promotes measures to i) widen awareness of academia and industry for its services and data, ii) extend the capabilities and service portfolio of EU-OS, and iii) enhance management processes.
The main objectives of DRIVE are: i) to implement the EU-OPENSCREEN (EU-OS) scientific program and the delivery of its main mission, to establish and operate a sustainable European RI for chemical biology, supporting life-science research with innovative chemical tools and bioactivity data and their translation into medicines and products for the benefit of the society, and ii) to consolidate EU-OS ERIC membership, supporting the national efforts in EU-OS member and candidate countries.
In the framework of the DRIVE project, workflows and access policies for users were improved, and outreach materials were produced to describe the EU-OS working procedures. KPIs were developed to monitor the progress of the RI’s implementation and operation. A network of national ‘ambassadors’ was established to liaise with external chemistry users interested in making their compounds available as part of the EU-OS European Academic Chemical Library (EACL). Over 5,000 compounds have been collected during the lifetime of the DRIVE project. Ten screening projects in oncology, diabetes, neurodegenerative disease, inflammatory disease, and infection disease were completed with external users to demonstrate the functionality of the services offered by EU-OS. Three more successful EU-OS DRIVE small molecule screening projects were selected for funding in RP3, and 5 projects in total were executed and completed by the end of the project. The primary screening data were deposited in EU-OS’s open-access European Chemical Biology Database (ECBD). Scientific publications are in preparation, and projects results have been included in postgraduate theses. The number of fragment library users increased and strengthened the cooperation between EU-OS and Instruct-ERIC/iNEXT-Discovery. Fragment-based lead discovery was incorporated into the service catalogue of EU-OS ERIC. The first five chemoproteomics projects and one MSI project have been implemented at EU-OS-DRIVE partner facilities. The projects addressed a range of biological questions and fields, such as mood disorders, inflammation, cancer, and prion diseases. Data management procedures to data FAIRification were refined. The Industry Liaison Office (ILO) continued to facilitate the engagement with companies, and annual ILO workshops were organised. Four co-development projects with industry partners and two co-development projects with SMEs were successfully executed. Training programmes focussing on the training needs of platform staff at partner sites and of the wider scientific community were implemented. The first training school was organised virtually in 2021, attracting over 300 participants. In 2022, the second training school was organised, attracting over 400 participants and offering approximately 35 hours of lectures. EU-OS organised 15 webinars with over 50 attendees on average. Staff exchanges were organised to train researchers in new technologies that are part of the novel services in DRIVE. Outreach campaigns to existing and new user communities were reinforced. Future strategic opportunities to promote long-term sustainability of the RI were explored. The coordination team established transparent workflows and procedures to support progress in and communication between all WPs and to ensure that each WP met its deliverables and milestones as planned. Continuous reporting, risk assessment, and communication with the EU COM were carried out regularly.
In the framework of the DRIVE project, workflows and access policies for users were improved, and outreach materials were produced to describe the EU-OS working procedures. KPIs were developed to monitor the progress of the RI’s implementation and operation. A network of national ‘ambassadors’ was established to liaise with external chemistry users interested in making their compounds available as part of the EU-OS European Academic Chemical Library (EACL). Over 5,000 compounds have been collected during the lifetime of the DRIVE project. Ten screening projects in oncology, diabetes, neurodegenerative disease, inflammatory disease, and infection disease were completed with external users to demonstrate the functionality of the services offered by EU-OS. Three more successful EU-OS DRIVE small molecule screening projects were selected for funding in RP3, and 5 projects in total were executed and completed by the end of the project. The primary screening data were deposited in EU-OS’s open-access European Chemical Biology Database (ECBD). Scientific publications are in preparation, and projects results have been included in postgraduate theses. The number of fragment library users increased and strengthened the cooperation between EU-OS and Instruct-ERIC/iNEXT-Discovery. Fragment-based lead discovery was incorporated into the service catalogue of EU-OS ERIC. The first five chemoproteomics projects and one MSI project have been implemented at EU-OS-DRIVE partner facilities. The projects addressed a range of biological questions and fields, such as mood disorders, inflammation, cancer, and prion diseases. Data management procedures to data FAIRification were refined. The Industry Liaison Office (ILO) continued to facilitate the engagement with companies, and annual ILO workshops were organised. Four co-development projects with industry partners and two co-development projects with SMEs were successfully executed. Training programmes focussing on the training needs of platform staff at partner sites and of the wider scientific community were implemented. The first training school was organised virtually in 2021, attracting over 300 participants. In 2022, the second training school was organised, attracting over 400 participants and offering approximately 35 hours of lectures. EU-OS organised 15 webinars with over 50 attendees on average. Staff exchanges were organised to train researchers in new technologies that are part of the novel services in DRIVE. Outreach campaigns to existing and new user communities were reinforced. Future strategic opportunities to promote long-term sustainability of the RI were explored. The coordination team established transparent workflows and procedures to support progress in and communication between all WPs and to ensure that each WP met its deliverables and milestones as planned. Continuous reporting, risk assessment, and communication with the EU COM were carried out regularly.
EU-OS offers users access to cutting edge technologies and expertise. These users typically have only limited access to technology platforms, so access to the EU-OS service portfolio directly facilitates scientific research which would otherwise be difficult to realise. During the DRIVE project, pilot projects validated the functionality of the service pipeline and informed the refinement and improvement of access procedures. Discoveries in basic research and their translation to the clinic requires considerable economic and human resources; therefore, increasing the use of integrated resources and utilising technical skills and knowledge saves considerable time and resources. In DRIVE, the extended offers in technology for fragment-based drug discovery and chemoproteomics, along with enhanced data FAIRification procedures and standardised practices, facilitated the identification of several bioactive, potent, and specific compounds as starting points for the development of new chemical tools and lead compounds, with potential impacts in drug discovery. Additionally, the open science practices in DRIVE supported innovation and knowledge transfer among a wider scientific community and enhanced transparency in research and data reproducibility. Moreover, under-exploited compounds from European chemists were made accessible as part of EU-OS’ compound submission model, as a basis for the discovery of novel bioactivities and potential applications for these community compounds. DRIVE raised awareness among academics, scientists, industry partners, and policy makers about the service offers of EU-OS and its contribution to the discovery of novel bioactive compounds which can be translated into new products by the private sector.