Established 1993 Address Ratsupites Street 1 | Location Riga, Latvia | |
Founder(s) Dr. Hab. Biol. Elmars Grens Website | ||
Latvian Biomedical Research and Study centre (BMC) is the scientific institute in molecular biology and biomedicine in Latvia. Since its establishment in 1993 it has evolved into a scientific centre performing basic as well as applied research in molecular genetics, vaccine development, genomics and proteomics, cancer biology, immunology, biotechnology, stem cell biology, structure biology and other scientific areas.
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History
First in 1993 under leadership of Prof. Elmars Grens Biomedical Research and Study centre of the University of Latvia (LU BMC) was established by merge of several research groups from Latvian Academy of Sciences (LAS), Molecular Biology Institute of University of Latvia and LAS Microbiology institute. From 2006 BMC is an independent state research institution, but it continues to work in close collaboration with University of Latvia and other universities in scientific and educational areas. At the beginning scientific personnel of BMC consisted of 45 researchers, that carried out research in fields of molecular virology, nucleic acid chemistry, virus like particles and molecular epidemiology of infectious diseases. In 2000 BMC established long term collaboration with Switzerland company „Cytos Biotechnology” Ltd. concerning research of virus structural gene exploration in order to construct virus like particles that could serve as vaccines or immunomodulating therapeutics. New research area of cancer immunology in BMC developed with investigation of anti-cancer humoral immune response triggering proteins. In 2001 novel collaboration project financed by Latvian Council of Science “Genofond research of population of Latvia and its application for human pathology diagnostics and profilaxis” begun that promoted research of human genetics in Latvia. That led to establishment of Latvian Genome Data Base (LGDB) in 2006. LGDB now contains over 17000 samples that are available for research use for scientists of different research institutes. After Latvia joined European Union several projects were undertaken financed by European Structural funds. Significant development of infrastructure took place after financial support from State Research Program. At the moment BMC scientific personnel exceeds 100 and main research areas are novel vaccine development, molecular virology, human genetics, epidemiology of infectious diseases, cancer biology and immunology, stem cell biology, structure biology and other fundamental as well as applied scientific fields.
Research directions
Funding
The research and infrastructure is supported by funding from the Latvian Council of Science, Ministry of Education and Science, various European funding programmes like the European Social Fund, European Regional Development Fund, as well as by industry. Considerable core facilities have been established for molecular and cell biology research.
Related organizations
Latvian Biomedcial Research and Study Centre has promoted the development of several related organizations Latvian Genome Data Base, Latvian Genome Centre, Latvian Association of Human Genetics, Genera Ltd., Asla Biotech Ltd. and Cilmes Sunu Tehnologijas Ltd. Currently, these organizations provide services in Latvia and foreign countries.
Studies
In collaboration with higher education institutions Latvian Biomedcial Research and Study Centre participates in student education. Academic personnel of BMC conducts lecture courses in University of Latvia, Riga Technical University and Riga Stradins University. Students from different universities carry out their bachelor, master or doctoral studies under supervision of BMC specialists.
Scientific council
Head of the Scientific Council - Dr. Hab. Biol. Elmars Grens