MOSBRI Outcomes: Advancing Molecular Biophysics Through Shared Data, Tools and Infrastructure

The Molecular-Scale Biophysics Research Infrastructure (MOSBRI) project addressed the need for enhanced European-level coverage of molecular-scale biophysics, a field situated between atomic-resolution structural biology and cellular imaging. This initiative fostered community building through networking, training, and joint research activities, providing transnational access to 25 distinct technologies, including real-time biosensing, advanced spectroscopies, hydrodynamic, thermodynamic, and single-molecule approaches. Over its four-year span, MOSBRI attracted more than 250 applications for access and engaged nearly 1000 participants across 4 international conferences, 14 training schools, and 4 benchmarking actions. Key outcomes include the development of the eSPC software suite and the Molecular Biophysics Database (MBDB). The eSPC suite is a web-based, open-source platform offering user-friendly data analysis tools for techniques such as microscale thermophoresis (MST), differential scanning fluorimetry (DSF), dynamic light scattering (DLS), circular dichroism (CD), biolayer interferometry (BLI), and mass photometry (MP). Ongoing development focuses on integrating artificial intelligence via MCP servers for enhanced, high-throughput analysis, exemplified by the CheMelt tool for global analysis of chemical and thermal denaturation in DSF, which revealed that a reduced heat capacity of unfolding is a mechanism for achieving higher thermal stability in designed proteins. The MBDB serves as a public, FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) repository for raw biophysical data, standardizing formats and enabling cross-method searches for ITC, BLI, MST, and SPR data, with MP integration underway. It employs precise chemistry definitions and unique persistent identifiers. The formation of the Association of Resources for Biophysical Research in Europe (ARBRE) as a legal entity ensures the continuity of MOSBRI’s community-building efforts. Outcomes of the Molecular-Scale Biophysics Research Infrastructure (MOSBRI) project : focus on the Molecular Biophysics Database (MBDB) and the eSPC software suite This webinar will introduce the EU-funded Molecular-Scale Biophysics Research Infrastructure (MOSBRI) project, and two of its more outstanding outcomes: 1) The Molecular Biophysics Database (MBDB), which allows researchers using MST, ITC, BLI and SPR to deposit their raw measurement data with appropriate details about the actual experimental conditions. 2) The eSPC web-based data analysis software suite, which allows researchers to analyse data from several different technologies: MST, DSF, DLS, CD, BLI During the webinar, speakers from the European Biophysics Journal, Springer Nature and MOSBRI will introduce the tools, explain the rationale for using them, how to use them, and will be open to question answer. For more details about the special collection, please see here: https://link.springer.com/collections/idcdjihhdb Introduction to MOSBRI and its outcomes - focus of the special EBJ special issue dedicated to MOSBRI The Molecular-Scale Biophysics Research Infrastructure (MOSBRI; www.mosbri.eu), has been funded until October 2025 by the European Commission through its Horizon 2020 INFRAIA scheme, bringing together an integrated consortium of 13 academic centres of excellence and two industrial partners from 11 European countries. It carried out three types of activities: 1) Joint Research Activities enabling the emergence of novel methodologies and technologies (in partnership with instrument and software developers), the design, production and dissemination of standard reference proteins, the coining of proficiency accreditation schemes for biophysical techniques, and the establishment of data and metadata archival standards and a universal database for molecular-scale biophysics data; 2) Networking Activities such as the organization of international conferences and courses, and the creation with synergies with like-minded networks and associations, and 3) Trans-national access (TNA) provision to cutting-edge instrumentation and expertise. This talk will show how, over the last 4 years, MOSBRI has successfully contributed to consolidate the European molecular biophysics community. It will also focus on one of its publication outcomes, a special issue of the European Biophysics Journal: https://link.springer.com/collections/idcdjihhdb Most of MOSBRI activities are currently continued in the frame of the Association of Resources for Biophysical Research in Europe (ARBRE; https://www.arbre-biophysics.eu/), a new member of the European Biophysical Societies' Association (EBSA). The eSPC web-based data analysis software suite, which allows researchers to analyse data from several different technologies: MST, DSF, DLS, CD, BLI, MP The characterisation of biomolecules and their interactions is key to understanding how biological processes operate at the molecular level and to developing new therapies or biotechnological products. For this purpose, a wide range of biophysical techniques, such as circular dichroism (CD), differential scanning fluorimetry (DSF), microscale thermophoresis (MST), biolayer interferometry (BLI), mass photometry (MP), and dynamic light scattering (DLS), can be employed. The interpretation of the generated data usually requires specialized software provided with the instruments or the need to write code. To democratise access to advanced analysis tools and increase the reproducibility of the data analysis step, we have developed the open-source eSPC platform, available at https://spc.embl-hamburg.de. The eSPC platform contains user-friendly and interactive modules, freely available for academia, that allow assessment of biomolecular interactions, complex formation, sample size, homogeneity, and stability. The Molecular Biophysics Database (MBDB) The Molecular Biophysics Database (MBDB) Jan Dohnálek1, Terezie Prchalová1, Jitka Plucarová1, Tim Kadlec1, Jan Stránský1, Andrea S. Veiga2, Juan Sabín2, Miroslav Šimek3, Emil Dandanell Agerschou1 1 Institute of Biotechnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, v.v.i., Průmyslová 595, 252 50 Vestec, Czech Republic 2 AFFINImeter, Software 4 Science Developments, Edificio Emprendia, Campus Vida, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain 3 Czech Education and Scientific NETwork (CESNET), Generála Píky 430/26, 160 00 Prague 6, Czech Republic dohnalek@ibt.cas.cz With the number of methods of molecular biophysics growing every year, there are still very limited resources for storage of raw data with annotation of experimental conditions for their reuse. The Molecular Biophysics Database (MBDB) stores raw data files together with metadata descriptions. The design of the database makes measurement results Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable. The metadata for individual data sets consist of a general part and a method-specific part. The general part defines, in a unique way, descriptors for key parameters common for different experimental techniques, e.g. source organism, identity of individual molecules, including chemicals, with reference to external databases and unique identifiers for the most relevant types. The method-specific part is devoted to the metadata special for a particular technique (such as MST, BLI, etc.). This approach enables searching across different techniques and allows direct comparisons of results, e.g. interaction parameters, for the same molecular system measured by different techniques. The Molecular Biophysics Database (MBDB) is built using the Invenio repository platform technology (https://inveniosoftware.org/) and JSON as the key representation format of metadata, in collaboration with the CESNET data storage team and their hardware resources. MBDB was launched in January 2025 (https://mbdb-data.org/) and is ready for deposition of raw measurement files with rich metadata describing experimental details for the techniques MST, BLI, SPR and ITC [1]. We invite researchers to deposit their raw data and make them publicly available, with each record receiving a DOI identifier. We acknowledge support by the Horizon 2020 programme of EU (MOSBRI, no. 101004806) and by MEYS (CIISB support, LM2023042 and the OP JAK programme – project NRP, no. CZ.02.01.01/00/23_014/0008787). 1. Agerschou ED, Prchalová T, Šimek M, Malý M, Stránský J, Strnad M, Santisteban-Veiga A, Williams MA, Sabín J, Dohnálek J. Molecular Biophysics Database (MBDB) makes raw measurements findable and reusable. Eur Biophys J. 2025 Aug 10.