Research partnership

Since the establishment of the institute, the complexity of the issues we are trying to solve is increasing, thus making local partnerships (between IBS groups or involving institutions on EPN Campus) or remote partnerships (inter-institutional research initiatives) essential to garantee successfull projects.

The Partnership for Structural Biology (PSB)

The IBS is part of the Partnership for Structural Biology (PSB) whose primary objective is to study proteins of biomedical interest. The PSB constitutes a further step in the development of the region as an International centre of excellence for structural biology.

Founding members and mission

The founding members of the PSB, the ESRF, the ILL, the EMBL, and the CNRS, the CEA and the University Joseph Fourier on behalf of the IBS signed in 2002 a memorandum of understanding that led to the signature of the PSB Collaboration Agreement in 2005 for a period of 5 years. The agreement has since then been extended three times until 31 December 2025.

The primary mission of the PSB is to regroup the structural biology activity on the campus (today European Photon and Neutron Campus, EPN) and provide common platforms to perform state of the art structural biology projects and coordinate scientific activities to promote interaction between the IBS, EMBL, ILL and ESRF. A complete list of the platforms can be found at the PSB website. The access mode to technical platforms is described at the website of the ISBG (Integrated Structural Biology Grenoble) a Support and Research Unit directed by D. Hart.

For more information :
 Visit the PSB Web Site
 Details about the PSB members

CIBB (Carl-Ivar Brändén Building)

Bâtiment PSB
Crédit photo : ILL/P. Ginter

All partners of the PSB occupy lab and office space at the Carl-Ivar Brändén Building (known as CIBB) since its inauguration in January 2006.
The building comprises 3 600 m² laboratory and office space and IBS researchers (3 research groups composed of 7 research teams) occupy half of it.

The PSB partners

European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL)

The EMBL is an international organisation with the mission to conduct basic research in molecular biology, to provide essential services to scientists in its 21 Member States, to provide high-level training to its staff, students and visitors, and to develop new instrumentation for biological research.
EMBL Grenoble staff collaborates with the ESRF in building and operating state-of-the-art X-ray beamlines for macromolecular crystallography and small-angle scattering, developing the associated instrumentation and techniques, and providing expert help to visitors.

European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF)

The ESRF - the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility - is the world’s most intense X-ray source and a centre of excellence for fundamental and innovation driven research in condensed and living matter science. The ESRF owns its success thanks to the international cooperation of 21 partner nations, of which 13 are Members and 8 are Scientific Associates.
The ESRF’s mission is to operate, maintain and develop a synchrotron radiation source and associated instrumentation. The ESRF science programme, one of most recognised in the world, is strengthened, in the frame of the PSB, with the creation of a state-of-the-art automated beamline for cristallography to enable the long-term programme to be pursued.

Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL)

The ILL is an international research centre based in Grenoble, France. At the leading edge of neutron science and technology, it operates one of the most intense neutron sources in the world. Tthe ILL has contributed to important advances in the life sciences through the use of a wide range of innovative instruments. In the context of the PSB and in collaboration with the EMBL and IBS, the ILL has set up a laboratory for the deuteration of biological macromolecules, to fully exploit the advantages of neutron scattering in life sciences.

Institut de Biologie Structurale (IBS)

The Institute de Biologie Structurale (IBS) is a research center, housing a total of approximately 300 people, and supported under a joint agreement between three major French scientific research organizations, the CEA, the CNRS and the University Grenoble Alpes.
The Institute possesses cutting edge facilities for STRUCTURAL BIOLOGY. Within the PSB, the IBS is a remarkable resource center for crystallography, NMR, mass spectrometry, cryo-electron microscopy and analytical ultracentrifugation.

Other collaborations

In addition to its participation in the Partnership for Structural Biology, the IBS has collaborations with many French and International laboratories (particularly through ANR or European contracts and with Industry.

The RTRA programme (Themed Networks for Advanced Research) is a French National initiative for encouraging the emergence of regional centres of international research excellence. Together with other research institutions and higher education establishments, the IBS participates in the "Nanosciences at the Limits of Nanoelectronics" and "Innovations in Infectology” RTRAs.

The IBS has bilateral collaboration agreements with :
 Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH (FZJ) (FZJ-CEA agreement signed on July 2008)
 the LNBio-IBS partnership initiated in july 2013, which created an International Associated Laboratory (LIA) in Campinas (Brazil). The Bacwall lab brings together researchers and resources from two countries to discover new biological mechanisms that can be exploited for the development of new antibiotics (Coordinator : Andrea Dessen (IBS/PATBAC)

Also, we are involved in :
 the project ‘BrIdging Structural BiOlogy with Biological SyNthesis and Self Assembly to Reveal Key Processes in Living Systems’ (BISON), a 3-year H2020 TWINNING project initiated on 1st January 2016,
 the Innovative Training Network Rationalising Membrane Protein crystallisation, funded by the EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, in the context of which the IBS will host two PhD students and several others in secondments, from October 2017 to September 2020.

Local collaborations are supported by three major “Investissment Avenir” grants :
 Labex GRAL : Grenoble Alliance for Integrated Structural & Cell Biology
 FRISBI : FRench Infrastructure for Integrated Structural Biology
 CBH GS : Chemistry Biology Health Graduate School