IPBS supports a broad array of technological facilities and state‐of‐the‐art equipments designed to advance the research efforts of the Institute and of external investigators. In order to provide the capability to analyze biological materials using the most sophisticated technologies, our facilities are operated by experienced personnel and some of these facilities conduct their own research and development programs.
The Institute hosts four technological platforms, all of them having the IBiSA label (national coordination of the life science platforms, http://www.ibisa.net).
Two platforms are coordinated by IPBS:
- Proteomics (Head: Dr Odile Burlet‐Schiltz).
- PICT("Plateforme Intégrée de Criblage de Toulouse"; Head: Dr Laurent Maveyraud).
PICT groups all the structural biology facilities of the Institute (X‐ray crystallography, NMR, molecular modeling…) together with high throughput screening (CNRS/Pierre Fabre) and automated parallel synthesis (ITAV, CNRS, Université de Toulouse III), and aims at the structural characterization of therapeutic targets and the identification of novel pharmacological inhibitors.
IPBS is partner site for two other platforms:
- TRI ("Toulouse Réseau Imagerie"; Head: Dr Renaud Poincloux).
- Anexplo (Head: Dr Magali Jacquier).
- In both cases, IPBS hosts several facilities that are not found on the other sites. For instance, in the case of TRI, these include intravital microscopy, spectroscopy as well as BSL3 flow cytometry and microscopy.
These technological facilities are included in the Genopole Toulouse Midi‐Pyrénées, a regional network of research platforms in life sciences (http://www.genotoul.fr), open to groups from both public and private sectors and involved in technology development and innovation. It is important to point out that in 2006, the Proteomics platform has obtained the ISO9001:2000 certification, renewed in 2009 as ISO9001:2008 (Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance, LRQA).
