The P4EU Network
P4EU (Protein Production and Purification Partnership in Europe; www.p4eu.org) is a professional network, whose members engage in various aspects of protein expression, purification and characterization in academic settings such as universities, research institutes and private companies, typically core technology platforms.
The mission of P4EU is to create a forum for informal exchange of experiences and solutions to common problems to create critical mass, maximize technological advances and the development of standards on:
• Evaluation of and hands-on experience with cutting edge technologies
• Identification of sources of expertise
• Generating awareness of reagents available to the wider community
• Benchmarking and standard operation procedures – “How does my platform perform relative to others – and how can this be optimised?”
• Establishing standards for protein quality control (joint effort with the ARBRE biophysics network)
• Comparing baculovirus and mammal expression protocols
• On-going benchmarking of the PROSS algorithm for optimising protein stability
• Crowd-funding initiatives to pool resources e.g. sequencing the Sf21 genome
Taken together, the P4EU facilitates contacts between like-minded scientists in an open atmosphere with the meetings being highly stimulating events with high-quality talks as rich sources of inspiration.
