German/Russian Network of Computational Systems Biology

Many activities and projects have been organized, initiated and coordinated since we founded the Computational Systems Biology Network in 2005.One important aspect is the support of students and the organization of bilateral Workshops and Summer Schools. Therefore we were able to establish the annual German/Russian Workshop and Summer School organized in Bielefeld since 2010. We established the Russian/German Summer School and Network meeting as a part of the BGRS conferences taking place in Novosibirsk. Moreover we organized annual network meetings and seminars as a partner of the German/Russian Biotechnology network. In regards to the cooperation based on the student level the DAAD Leonhard-Euler program became one of the most relevant instruments, which we have been using since 2008. Furthermore, based on our meetings and activities, different projects could be initiated. Regarding the spectrum of projects we have actualized bilateral projects supported by both ministries and multilateral projects supported by EU projects.Today our network also serves as a bridge for the initiation of multilateral activities. This is one reason that we are now attempting to install a COST project based on our activities in the near future. One more level of activities can be seen regarding start up companies such as PBsoft (Novosibirsk) or GeneXplain (Wolfenbüttel, Moscow and Novosibirsk). These types of activities show a new and important dimension in German/Russian cooperation. Overall, the spectrum of our network starts from the student level up to the initiation and cooperation of companies. To intensify this kind of cooperation in 2011 we founded the Russian/German Research Center for Integrative Biology and Computation (RCIBC). Our idea is to use this new center to initiate intensive cooperation based on research activities (students, PhD students etc.), research projects (national, bi-national and international) up to the support of startups and cooperation with