New National Research Infrastructure Coordinated by Core Facilities

The five universities that are part of the infrastructure are the University of Gothenburg (host), Lund University, Karolinska Institutet, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, and Umeå University.

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“Each university's protein platform specializes in a specific expression system - ie technology for producing protein - and we can therefore complement each other and also accept more projects together than individually” said Malin Bäckström, manager at Mammalian Protein Expression (MPE) who will also lead the national infrastructure’s work.

For researchers who are new to the field

With the new infrastructure, Malin hopes that also researchers that are not familiar with protein production or do not have in-depth knowledge of proteins, will be able to use the possibilities.

“You do not need to have much of your own experience of protein chemistry to ask us for support for your project, we will guide you to the right way to produce the protein that you need” Malin said.

Biomedical researchers, for example, is a large user group for the proteins produced at the unit that Malin leads. She sees an increased interest both locally and nationally in complex and also post-translationally modified proteins, which can be produced in mammalian cells.

“A common usage is that you want to perform cryo-EM at SciLifeLab, or produce a viral protein that can be used in diagnostics or research. The actual protein material is produced by us at MPE and can then be used for further work.”

The range of services expanded

The new national platform has its origin in a nearly ten-year-old cooperation between the universities. The difference now is that the collaboration will have a more formal structure, the range of services will be expanded, and support becomes available to all researchers regardless of which university you belong to.

“PPS will produce proteins in bacteria, insect cells and mammalian cells, which are the most common ways. We are also expanding our range and adding production in yeast cells, plant cells and also an in vitro system where we do not use cells at all but produce the proteins in test tubes” Malin said and added: “Different proteins have different properties and need to be produced in different ways.”

Another important difference is that the new national infrastructure can provide support to all researchers based on equal conditions, for example in terms of costs.

Still easy to get in touch

When asked if researchers at GU will now have a detour reaching the local protein production at Core Facilities, Malin says that on the contrary, it will be easier.

“We will off course keep our good and close contacts with our local researchers at GU. The advantage is that, instead of rejecting projects, we will be able to send them to our partner universities in case we cannot take on the task ourselves, and researchers will thereby get more easy access to facilities at the other universities” Malin said.