CONCO

CONCO aims at bringing together the required excellence of 20 complementary partners to achieve its ambitious goals with a multidisciplinary approach. Partners originate from 13 countries and represent 15 European academic groups, 4 European Biotech SMEs and 1 US laboratory that cover all required aspects of the project, from basic discovery to market.

The participants cumulate expertise in various complementary fields such as:

• marine biology, biodiversity, molecular evolution
• genomic, transcriptomic and proteomic studies
• structural investigations and drug design
• chemical and biological production of bioactive ingredients
• functional studies on medically relevant models for human health problems affecting the nervous, muscular, cardiovascular and immune systems
• databases, biocomputing
• drug development through pre-clinical and clinical trials
• marketing, technology transfer, teaching and training
• legal aspects and intellectual property rights

Altogether, the participants have contributed to hundreds of patents and thousands of high-ranking scientific publications. Several participants are long-term members of the International Society on Toxinology and some groups are used to working together since decades. More than 100 peer-reviewed publications were co-authored by two or more participants.

CONCO integrates complementary entities to the project, which will favour innovation and stimulate the development of the science around the study of the venomous function and its potential to bring new biopharmaceutical drugs to the market. Since no European partner is ready to undertake such an intensive genome sequencing work (only a handful of institutes around the world have such a capacity), the prestigious J. Craig Venter Institute (USA) has enthusiastically agreed to be in charge of these aspects. Another not-for-profit institute the Toxinomics Foundation that integrates worldwide renowned experts will be in charge of drug development aspects.