Drawing the curtain on INTERBIO

Oeiras, 19.06.2012

The INTERBIO meeting held last month in Toulouse marked the end of this collaborative project of southwest European research institutions supported by Interreg-Sudoe to stimulate the scientific and technological cooperation in Life Sciences in this region. ITQB, one of the five partners, was acknowledged, in the words of one of the coordinators, as “a strong driver in the Interbio Community”.

The importance of having ITQB on board in this consortium was voiced during the meeting and this opinion was shared by all partners, who further highlighted ITQB’s competences in communication, organization, and dissemination of results. With representations from the five nodes within INTERBIO –Toulouse, Bordeaux, Barcelona, Valencia, and Lisboa – the meeting was the forum for summarizing the main outcomes of this consortium and sharing success stories, which included events for the general public, courses for researchers, technology transfer workshops, and collaborative research projects between partner institutions.

During the meeting, Miguel Teixeira, full professor at ITQB who led the INTERBIO-Lisbon node, presented the main achievements of ITQB throughout the last three years. ITQB was present in 15 (out of 21) collaborative projects, organized three Interbio seminars, two scientific symposiums, a summer school for young researchers, a science communication workshop and, together with IGC, several bioinformatics courses. In total, over 300 researchers from southwest Europe participated in the Portuguese events, learning about the institute and its research, and reinforcing the importance of stable cooperation networks for innovation and technological development in Life Sciences.

Following the success of INTERBIO as a whole, the consortium is committed to strengthen the established collaborations and, with new partners, further extend the scientific cooperation in the Southwest European region.

Learn more about ITQB’s activities within INTERBIO.