Research infrastructures are essential for top-level academic and industrial research activities. Throughout the successive framework programmes (FPs) of the EU, actions have been gradually developed to support researchers in accessing top-level European research infrastructures located outside their own country and also to better coordinate and integrate these infrastructures Europe-wide, enabling better research services. At the same time, research infrastructures pave the way for the development of scientific and technological advances. Under the sixth Framework Programme (FP6; 2002-2006), for example, nanobiotechnologies have benefited from these European actions through three approaches: the support of multi-disciplinary pan-European infrastructures; the support of pan-European infrastructures dedicated to biology but with usage in multiple domains of biology; and the funding of integrated centers for nanobiotechnologies. The seventh Framework Programme (FP7; 2007-2013) will reinforce these actions toward research infrastructures, with particular attention to the emergence of new ones as well as to the provision of important strategic research services in fields such as nanobiotechnologies.

Using biological machinery to make new, functional molecules is an exciting area in chemical biology. Complex molecules containing both [?]natural? and [?]unnatural? components are made by processes ranging from enzymatic catalysis to the combination of molecular biology with chemical tools. Here, we discuss applying this approach to the next level of biological complexity ? building synthetic, functional biotic systems by manipulating biological machinery responsible for development of multicellular organisms. We describe recent advances enabling this approach, including first, recent developmental biology progress unraveling the pathways and molecules involved in development and pattern formation; second, emergence of microfluidic tools for delivering stimuli to a developing organism with exceptional control in space and time; third, the development of molecular and synthetic biology toolsets for redesigning or de novo engineering of signaling networks; and fourth, biological systems that are especially amendable to this approach.

Vaccine design is highly suited to the application of in silico techniques, for both the discovery and development of new and existing vaccines. Here, we discuss computational contributions to epitope mapping and reverse vaccinology, two techniques central to the new discipline of immunomics. Also discussed are methods to improve the efficiency of vaccination, such as codon optimization and adjuvant discovery in addition to the identification of allergenic proteins. We also review current software developed to facilitate vaccine design.

Synthetic biology combines knowledge from various disciplines including molecular biology, engineering, mathematics and physics to design and build novel proteins, genetic circuits and metabolic networks. Early efforts aimed at altering the behavior of individual elements have now evolved to focus on the construction of complex networks in single-cell and multicellular systems. Recent achievements include the development of sophisticated non-native behaviors such as bi-stability, oscillations, proteins customized for biosensing, optimized drug synthesis and programmed spatial pattern formation. The de novo construction of such systems offers valuable quantitative insight into naturally occurring information processing activities. Furthermore, as the techniques for system design, synthesis and optimization mature, we will witness a rapid growth in the capabilities of synthetic systems with a wide-range of applications.

The functional requirement to form and maintain the active site structure probably exerts a strong selective pressure on a protein to adopt just one stable and evolutionarily conserved fold. Nonetheless, new evidence suggests the likelihood of protein fold being neither physically nor biologically invariant. Alternative folds discovered in several proteins are composed of constant and variable parts. The latter display context-dependent conformations and a tendency to form new oligomeric interfaces. In turn, oligomerisation mediates fold evolution without loss of protein function. Gene duplication breaks down homo-oligomeric symmetry and relieves the pressure to maintain the local architecture of redundant active sites; this can lead to further structural changes.