SciLifeLab - a national resource of unique technologies and expertise

Published 7 February 2023

BMC house — Photo: Charlotte Carlberg Barg

SciLifeLab, Science for Life Laboratory, is a joint organisation for the advancement of molecular biosciences in Sweden. What started off as a joint effort between Stockholm-based universities is now a national collaboration with operations at 11 universities. In 2022, SciLifeLab site Lund was started.

SciLifeLab, Science for Life Laboratory, is a joint organisation for the advancement of molecular biosciences in Sweden. The backbone is the governmentally funded national research infrastructure through which SciLifeLab provides access to the cutting-edge instrumentation and deep scientific expertise necessary to be internationally competitive within the entire continuum of biology research, from the atomic level all the way to ecosystems. The other two pillars of SciLifeLab are research group leaders (SciLifeLab Fellows) and the Data-Driven Life Science (DDLS) program.

SciLifeLab started out in 2010 as a joint effort between Karolinska Institutet, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm University and Uppsala University, however today, there is a national distribution with operations at 11 universities, in total 40 units.

The SciLifeLab national infrastructure is organized into 10 platforms, each of which comprises a number of units that provide technologies and services to users:

Bioinformatics
Cellular and Molecular Imaging
Chemical Biology and Genome Engineering
Clinical Genomics
Clinical Proteomics and Immunology
Genomics
Drug Discovery and Development
Integrated Structural Biology
Metabolomic
Spatial and Single Cell Biology

SciLifeLab site Lund

SciLifeLab Lund is the local site of SciLifeLab at Lund University. This virtual centre, funded by SciLifeLab and Lund University, started in 2022 and consists of six units:

Clinical Genomics Lund - Belongs to Clinical Genomics
Cryo EM - Belongs to Cellular and Molecular Imaging
Human Antibody Therapeutics - Belongs to Drug Discovery and Development
National Bioinformatics infrastructure Sweden (NBIS) - Belongs to Bioinformatics
Structural Proteomics - Belongs to Integrated Structural Biology
Chemical Biology Consortium Sweden CBSC Node - Belongs to Chemical Biology and Genome Engineering

The site is governed by a steering group (stakeholders e.g. FoE, FoM, FoS, healthcare) and is operationally led by a director and a management group (representatives from all included units/research infrastructures). At the moment the site is comprised of 2 FTEs (Director, Coordinator, Research data/IT manager) located at BMC D14.

Moreover, the local research infrastructures Lund University Bioimaging Centre (LBIC) and the National Infrastructure for Biological Mass Spectrometry (BioMS) are also considered included in the site, although they are not funded by SciLifeLab.