The Malta Council for Science and Technology (MCST) started collaboration with the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), a scientific international organisation of worldwide repute.

MCST chairman, engineer Dr Nicholas Sammut, mostly known for his scientific contributions to CERN – the European organisation for nuclear research – announced the collaboration in a press conference at the world centre of new thinking in Bighi, yesterday.

Maltese science students and researchers will be the ones who benefit mostly from this collaboration as it will pave the way to their gaining of experience in such laboratories thus allowing international knowledge exchange.

“Scientific international organisations are world centres of advanced technology in various fields. Their infrastructure is so big that no single country can afford them, more so a small country like Malta. They attract the global scientific investment in terms of funding and scientific know-how,” said Dr Sammut.

Dr Sammut added that the local pharmaceutical company has a lot to benefit by gaining access to these high-end opportunities. He went on saying that Malta could attract more high added-value enterprises.

EMBL representative, Dr Silke Schumacher said the research in life sciences with a clear link to medical and pharmaceutical research should be of great interest to Maltese industry. She added that the cornerstones of EMBL’s mission are to perform basic research in molecular biology, to train scientists, students and visitors at all levels, to offer vital services to scientists in the member states and to develop new instruments and methods in the life sciences and technology transfer.

Research at EMBL emphasises experimental analysis at multiple levels of biological organisation, from the molecule to the organism, as well as computational biology, functional genomics and systems biology. These therefore include several aspects of structural biology, biochemistry, developmental biology and cell biology.

“The lab is massive and the opportunities are tremendous,” said Dr Sammut.

The European Molecular Biology is the largest molecular biology laboratory in Europe and is known for its advanced research worldwide. It was founded in 1974 based on the CERN model with 20 European member states and one associate member involving around 1400 specialists in life sciences, engineers and computing. Its online services in structural biology service more than 3000 users per day while the bioinformatics services has more than three million hits per day. Over 1,000 scientists visit the EMBL laboratories every year.