The research groups and researchers at the Department of Biology and Biological Engineering are part of several nationally and international founded centers and infrastructures. The department further functions as a bridge between some of these centers and infrastructures.
Wallenberg Wood Science Center is a research center with a focus on new materials from trees. The mission is to create knowledge and build competence that can form the basis for an innovative future value creation from forest raw material.
The Wallenberg Center for Protein Research is a research center established in cooperation between KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Uppsala University and Chalmers Technical University. The center is mainly funded by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation.
FSS is a national platform with the aim of strengthening and highlighting Swedish food research. Within four thematic areas (raw materials, technology, environment, and food-health) the center is currently developing national interdisciplinary research projects.
CFB is a large research center with its main site at Technical University of Denmark and with satellites at Chalmers, KTH and University California of San Diego. The center is funded through a donation of 1.3 billion DKK from the Novo Nordisk Foundation.
Infrastructures:
- Bioinformatics Infrastructure for Life Science, BILS
This is a national VR funded infrastructure with the core at the SciLifeLab. BILS is the Swedish node of ELEXIR, an EU funded infrastructure for bioinformatics. Chalmers has a node in BILS and it is planned to expand this further such that it becomes a key node for bioinformatics service in the region.
- Systems biology Infrastructure for Life Science, SILS
Chalmers is a key hub in this infrastructure. SILS is the Swedish node in ISBE (Infrastructure Systems Biology Europe) that has received start-up funding from EU (Chalmers and GU are the two Swedish delegates in this infrastructure). The department will ensure coordination of BILS and SILS activities at Chalmers, and at the same time represent a bridge between these two infrastructures.
- Chalmers Mass Spectrometry Infrastructure, CMSI
The CMSI is a Chalmers infrastructure that provides access to both mass spectrometry instrumentation and service analyses to researchers at Chalmers and beyond. Currently many different types of small molecules can be analysed in biological samples at the CMSI, and the range of analyses is expanding. The CMSI also performs metabolomics analysis and is a node of the Swedish Metabolomics Centre in Umeå.
- Fermentation
Chalmers hosts one of the largest academic fermentation platforms in the world with more than 40 computerized fermenters (investment exceeding 15 MSEK). This infrastructure will serve all research groups at the department.