Name: Czech Centre for Phenogenomics
Institution: Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Czech Academy of Sciences
Coordinator: PD. Dr. rer. nat. habil. Radislav Sedláček, radislav.sedlacek@img.cas.cz
Website
CCP is the largest non-distributed biomedical research infrastructure in the Czech Republic with international significance, providing a unique and complex service portfolio, which on this scale, can only be found in just a few places throughout the world. The activity of CCP focuses on three main areas: the first being genome editing (mainly in laboratory rodents), which is currently performed primarily using the programmable nuclease (e.g. CRISPR/Cas9). CCP is among the best centres in the world in this area and offers this service to researchers from around the world, thus facilitating the development of animal models to study human diseases. Secondly, CCP focuses on phenotyping, i.e. comprehensive characterization of genetically modified models in order to describe the functions of studied genes with informative mutations. CCP is able to investigate all main physiological systems and reveal how and where specific genes function. As CCP closely cooperates with partners from international consortia, all procedures and technologies are standardized, which improves result reproducibility. CCP develops not only new technologies for genome editing and for the characterization of physiological functions, but also provides services in pharmacokinetics and toxicology, therefore contributing to the development of new medicines for both the academic and commercial spheres. This preclinical research represents the third area of CCP’s activities. PDX technology (Patient-Derived tumour Xenograft), which investigates the
development of human tumours engrafted into mouse models and the possibilities of their therapies using a personalized therapeutic approach, is also included in this area. Altogether, CCP’s scope is very broad, ranging from genetics and molecular biology to physiological disciplines, and from biochemistry to technology disciplines including mass spectrometry. CCP is a member of the INFRAFRONTIER (European Research Infrastructure for the Generation, Phenotyping, Archiving and Distribution of Model Mammalian Genomes) European research infrastructure and due to the comprehensive portfolio of its expertise, from the generation of mutant models to its knowledge of and experience with analysing the functions of genes and their mutations, it has also become a member of the international consortia IMPC (International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium). CCP is working together with IMPC members on a very ambitious goal, which is the description of the functions of all mammalian genes. CCP is currently working on its entry into the EurOPDX European research infrastructure.
