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7.3. HEALTH AND FOOD SCIENCES

BIOMOLECULAR INTERACTIONS, STRUCTURAL BIOLOGY AND MOLECULAR
IMAGING RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURE GROUP

Presentation of the RI group
The analysis of life phenomena at the molecular level is an essential part of modern life sciences and biomedical research.
To be internationally competitive in the latter area we need to organise a domestic infrastructure group which can use
the results of atomic structural biochemistry, which have a fundamentally physical nature, to understand how macro-
molecular complexes function within the cell. Discovery research offer enormous benefits for this area, which is most
obviously manifested in drug development for society (EU-OPENSCREEN; http://www.eu-openscreen.eu ). The
study of biomolecular interactions can be interpreted in three interrelated areas: 1) structural biochemistry, which seeks
to reveal atomic structures (INSTRUCT; https://www.structuralbiology.eu ); 2) classical biochemistry, which char-
acterises the physical nature of interactions, and 3) microscopy techniques suitable for the examination of intracellular
molecular interactions usually by using imaging procedures (EURO-Bioimaging; http://www.eurobioimaging.eu )
Such a massively complex infrastructure demanding extensive expertise (in physics, chemistry and biology) could be
most effectively operated in a distributed arrangement, which builds on expertise and capacities that already exist or
are under development (through project proposals co-financed from the Structural Funds).

National coordinator of the RI group: Background information
Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences The three related ESFRI projects classified under the Health &
Food development area also involve Hungarian researchers who
Contact: Attila Reményi are represented by coordinators (EU-OPENSCREEN – MTA
Email: remenyi.attila@ttk.mta.hu TTK; EURO-Bioimaging – DE; INSTRUCT – BME, ELTE).
Website: http://ttk.mta.hu/ All three projects are geographically distributed, and the users use
the capacities of specialised service centres for the implementation
Partners: DE; PTE; SZTE; SE; BME; ELTE; MTA SZBK; MTA KOKI of their specific project plans.

ESFRI connection: EU-OPENSCREEN; Euro-BioImaging; INSTRUCT Aim of the RI group
Domestic infrastructures suitable for the examination of
Status of the RI group: under implementation biomolecular interactions should be aligned with projects in-
cluded in the ESFRI Roadmap . By providing measurement func-
tionalities, the capacities of the domestic RI group will facilitate
the dispatch of Hungarian initiated projects to larger-capacity in-
ternational consortium centres. This is important because ESFRI
accredited centres can only be used cost-effectively in possession
of preliminary results which increases the success of the project in
larger-capacity centres abroad.

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