National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) and Bioplatforms Australia

The BMSF works with partner facilities as part of the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS). It receives funding from the NSW Government to enable a formal connection with NCRIS through Bioplatforms Australia (BPA), the entity that manages NCRIS activity in the priority area of Evolving Biomolecular Platforms. This is an extension and expansion of earlier links under the Major National Research Infrastructure (MNRF) program in which the BMSF was a node of the Australian Proteome Analysis Facility (APAF).

BMSF works with BPA as a node partner of the Proteomics Australia platform: a national, critical mass consortium of expert proteomics practitioners based on a hub-and-spokes organisational model that is developing Australia’s synergistic and complementary proteomics capabilities by providing world-class infrastructure and services.

A major part of the BMSF's equipment funding comes under the ARC LIEF National Competitive Grant Program. Large grants under this program are usually applied for jointly with other Australian institutions who seek to collaboratively share major equipment. Partners in these grants gain subsidised access to ALL BMSF equipment and usually engage in collaborative research projects with staff at the BMSF. The following LIEF partnerships are active:

• ARC LIEF (funded in 2007) with UNSW and Garvan Institute (more...)
• ARC LIEF (funded in 2006) with UNSW, Macquarie University, University of Sydney, University of Technology Sydney and Garvan Institute (more...)

The BMSF, as a regional centre for mass spectrometry and a developer of MS instruments and methodology, works collaboratively with the MS industry. The following industry partnerships are featured:

• Waters/Micromass (funded via industry contribution to 2002-2004 DEST Systemic Infrastructure Initiative) to develop novel GC/TOFMS instrumentation and methods for the identification of small molecules and metabolites.
• Thermo Scientific (2006-) reference site for Thermo Instruments.