Project seeks to link Big Data and chemistry
Horizon 2020 is supporting a European project aimed at connecting Big Data and biomedical research.
The ‘Big data in chemistry’, or BIGCHEM, venture is seeking to evaluate the chemical properties and biological activities of very large chemical compound libraries that are, for example, the basis for high throughput screening approaches in pharmaceutical drug discovery. Nine participants from science and industry and eight additional partner organisations are co-operating in the venture.
The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions project is co-ordinated by Helmholtz Zentrum München, Germany, and is fully funded by the European Commission with over €2.5m. The grant will be used to develop innovative analysis methods that are seen as becoming increasingly important in industrial research and applications.
Giving details, project co-ordinator Dr Igor Tetko, who heads the STB ‘Informatics and chemical biology’ research group at the Helmholtz Zentrum München, Germany, commented: “The BIGCHEM scientists will be trained in two phases. They will spend 18 months with the academic partners, and then gain experience for another 18 months in industry.”
The innovative training network venture runs from the start of next year until 2020.
