CCL: Collaboration Pool Formation, Virtual Organisations, ICT Support

 Sent to CCL by: Barry Hardy [barry.hardy-*-vtxmail.ch]
We are establishing Collaboration Pools of individuals and organisations who have an interest in collaborating together in areas of drug discovery or life science innovation. For example, a selection of Pool members could participate in a collaborative research project, develop a funding proposal or response to a call opportunity together, or develop an innovation or best practice.
To join the eCheminfo Collaboration Pool in drug design and discovery, please complete the short form located at 
 https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/V6T2YSD
To join the InnovationWell Collaboration Pool in life science innovation please complete the short form located at 
 https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/782L9DZ
During April - October 2010 we will be running two pilots which will create two virtual organisations (VOs) of research partners who will collaborate on projects in drug design and predictive toxicology:
a) Drug Design project will examine the application of a variety of leading modelling and design approaches to novel target kinases, to experimentally test predictions, and to initiate a best practices virtual screening resource.
b) Predictive Toxicology project will apply a combination of in silico and in vitro approaches to predict in vivo toxicity including exposure.
Both VOs will be supported by a variety of leading modelling and design software, informatics infrastructure, and collaborative content management and electronic lab notebook systems.
The VOs will be created from partners from the Collaboration Pools, who will bring contributing knowledge, computational or experimental capabilities to the partnership for the duration of the projects.
We are also currently seeking Expressions of Interest in the ICT support role for the pilots which should be submitted by 17.00 CET, 19 February 2010 through the following form: 
 https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/QSHKDCH
The ICT support role will support the informatics requirements of the researchers in organising, processing and sharing data, and in collaborative analysis and decision making.
The VOs will also be supported by knowledge-oriented collaboration services developed under the FP7 Synergy research project, including a reactive complex event driven engine, collaboration moderator, collaboration pattern services and partner knowledge base. Summary on Synergy project: http://barryhardy.blogs.com/theferryman/2008/02/knowledge-orien.html
The Predictive Toxicology VO will be supported by distributed REST-driven web services for data management, model building, validation and reporting, developed under the OpenTox Framework (http://www.opentox.org/). 
 best regards
 Barry Hardy PhD
 Director, Community of Practice & Research Activities
 and OpenTox Project Coordinator (www.opentox.org)
 Douglas Connect
 Switzerland
 Tel: +41 61 851 0170
 Email: barry.hardy -(at)- douglasconnect.com