Today (July 8th) the ICTS Infrastructure for Omics Technologies (IOT) is constituted in Madrid with the presence of the General Director of Innovation and Competitiveness after the signing of a cooperation agreement between the Centro Nacional de Análisis Genómico (CNAG-CRG) and the Centre for Omic Sciences (COS), on March 24th, for the constitution and coordinated management of this ICTS.

IOT is part of the National Map of Singular Scientific and Technical Infrastructures (ICTS) approved on October 7, 2014 by the Council for Science Policy, Technology and Innovation. The map consists of 29 ICTS that bring together a total of 59 facilities (56 operational and 3 under construction).

This initiative is a landmark agreement for the coordination of national infrastructures in the field of application of omics technologies, including the areas of genomics, proteomics and metabolomics, providing open and competitive access mechanisms in a coordinated way in order to increase the critical mass, improve national competitiveness and avoid duplication and redundancy.

The main objective is to offer an integrated solution for decoding the biological processes through a wide range of advanced technologies of molecular biology, with an optimized and unified service to its users, applying uniform access criteria to use them, thanks to a efficient coordination of the managed resources.

At present, IOT is composed of these two centers in Barcelona and Reus (Tarragona) but it will remain permanently open to the incorporation of new nodes, as established by the agreement of the Council for Science Policy, Technology and Innovation on October 7, 2014.

More information:
IOT website