Welcome

Thank you for your interest in MuG and welcome to the first edition of our Newsletter, which will be released periodically with the latest updates of Multiscale complex Genomics project.

MuG kicked-off its activities in November 2015 with the ambition to provide the tools and infrastructure for a Virtual Research Environment that supports and nucleates the expanding 3D/4D genomics community. The project will develop over 3 years with a budget of nearly 3 million euros.

MuG Virtual Research Environment

3D and 4D genomics represent one of the greatest challenges for biology and biomedicine in the next decade. MuG was born with the aim to support this expanding community, whose development is at risk of being inhibited by the huge amount of data that are generated and the lack of standardization in analysis and simulation tools.

Our team is composed by world-leading experts in structural genomics, epigenetics, genomics data management, bioinformatics and HPC applied to computational biology who are working hand in hand to develop tools to integrate the navigation in genomics data from sequence to 3D/4D chromatin dynamics data.

Through MuG, Europe bolsters the high hopes expected from the emerging and fast-evolving fields of 3D and 4D genomics.

Kick-off of the project activities

A meeting hosted by the coordinator, Prof. Modesto Orozco, of IRB Barcelona, gathered all MuG project partners to discuss the strategy for the project implementation in December 2015.

Since then, all work packages have successfully kicked-off their activities and successfully reached the first milestones. Special emphasis has been put during this first months in ensuring that efforts are coordinated and focused to maximizing project impact.

Launch of the Scientific Advisory Board

The Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) consists of distinguished scientists that stand out in the multiple areas of expertise involved in the MuG project: 3D/4D genomics, computational biology, High Performance Computing, simulation of nucleic acids, polymer physics applied to chromosome dynamics.

The SAB plays a key role in quality assurance, evaluating the project outputs and advising the supervisory board, with the ultimate goal of maximizing the impact of the research conducted under the project. The board will carry out annual evaluations and will be available for consultation on request.

The first SAB meeting is foreseen to take place in November 2016.

MIGUEL BEATO

Group Leader of the Chromatin and Gene Expression Group

Centre for Genomic Regulation (Barcelona, Spain)

TIZIANA FERRARI

PhD in Electronics and Data Communications Engineering

EGI.eu Technical Director and member of the EGI.eu Executive Board; Technical Coordinator of EGI.Engage

RICHARD LAVERY

Group leader - Bioinformatics: Structures and Interaction

Institute de Biologie et Chimie des Protéines, CNRS (Lyon, France)

ERIK LINDAHL

Professor of Biophysics - Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics

Stockholm University (Stockholm, Sweden)

CÉDRIC VAILLANT

Group Leader – Physics of Epigenome Regulation

Laboratory of Physics, CNRS (Lyon, France)

Dissemination

MuG partners have actively participated in events with contributions versing around multiscale simulation, taking the opportunity to raise awareness about the efforts undertaken by MuG to benefit the 3D/4D genomics community.

XIII Symposium on bioinformatics - The MuG concept of a Virtual Research Environment for multi-scale genomics was recently showcased at this gathering of the bioinformatics community in Valencia, Spain.
11th e-concertation meeting for European e-infrastructure projects - MuG actively takes part in joint dissemination initiatives boosted by the EC in coordination with other e-infrastructure projects, aiming at providing transversal services to the research community.
Website: The MuG website is the main outlet for information about the project activities.Stay tuned for the release of a fully upgraded website in June!
Social networks: MuG takes advantage of the communication platform offered by social media and is active in Twitter (@MuG_genomics) with a growing number of users. A YouTube channel has already been created

Coming up…

MuG M6 general meeting: On 26^th May the MuG consortium will meet up in Barcelona to discuss the achievements of the first 6 months and to coordinate efforts and define a work plan for the second half of the first year, which has some challenges ahead.
New website! We expect to increase the impact made on the community with the forthcoming launch of a new website, with increased functionality and features in June.

For the latest updates, visit our website www.multiscalegenomics.eu and be sure to follow us on twitter @MuG_genomics and sign up to receive future editions of our newsletter!