Background
The “new biology” reached a symbolic mile stone with the sequencing of the human genome. The new technologies for genotyping and global gene expression analysis with matrix-based method revolutionized studies in biology. Genomics and transcriptomics have become household words, and other “omics”, proteomics and metabolomics are also approaching global analysis.
Biomedical research has had a stronghold in Swedish science. By the turn of the last century, the Swedish universities identified the need to develop and establish the new technologies to remain internationally competitive. The Swedish government did not allocate funds for this new challenge which prompted search for alternative sources of support. The saviour was to be the Knut and Alice Wallenberg (KAW) Foundation. This private foundation received several proposals for support. In order to synchronize these proposals and establish a new infrastructure based on collaboration between universities the KAW Foundation decided on two programs one in central and northern Sweden named WCN (Wallenberg Consortium North) and one in southwest Sweden, Swegene. These consortia were given the same directives, encouraged if not to compete, experience the challenge to find the optimum approach. The WCN harbours seven universities, with different agendas and geographic locations. It was decided to operate at four geographic nodes, Stockholm with two nodes, Karolinska Institutet, and the Royal Institute of Technology/Stockholm University, respectively, Uppsala with Uppsala University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Science (SLU) and finally Umeå with Umeå University and the Umeå site of SLU. Linköping University adjoined. It was also decided that technologies should be established at all four sites, building on existing competences and profiles. Another major decision was to support the best science projects in the field and link them to the respective platforms. It was reasoned that the combination of a top-down approach, state-of-the art technology platforms, linked to a bottom-up approach, support of projects, and channeling money with the least possible time delay was important to position Sweden at the top internationally.
The initial network consisted of four platforms, SNP genotyping, gene expression profiling including protein expression and metabolomics, proteomics with protein production and structure/function identification, and model organisms with yeast, Arabidopsis, C. elegans, Drosophila and mice. Some technologies were represented at all nodes, e.g. mRNA expression analysis, others only at single nodes e.g. metabolomics. The platform coordinators also took on the role of disseminating knowledge and technical know-how by arranging courses and symposia. The high-throughput methods opened the possibility to query activation of thousands of genes. The volume and complexity of the data is an exiting challenge for interpretations and modelling. Half-way in the WCN program it was therefore decided to establish a bioinformatics platform, spanning in scope from statistical epidemiology, analysis of complex genotypes, transcript profiling, to protein structure/interaction predictions.
A separate effort is the National Biobanking program, run jointly with Swegene. The aim of this program is to make existing biobanks accessible to research and assist in blood and tissue collection for future analysis.
The support form the KAW Foundation was terminated by the end of 2005. Now the involved universities have committed to take over the responsibility of the technology platforms in a continuation of the programme; the new WCN - Consortium for Functional Genomics. This year also Lund University joined the consortium. The network is held together by a Coordinating group and a small administration.
