Dutch Techcentre for Life Sciences

Netherlands facility framework for high-end technologies in the life sciences

DTL offers a strategic framework of interconnected life science technology facilities (techcentres). Each techcentre is built up by a technology community representing a partnership of Dutch academia and industry with top level expertise. DTL facilities are all strongly connected to innovative technology research and training groups. This is crucial to ensure long-term excellence and leadership.

Ready access to facilities is key, ranging from collaborative research and education to full services. Indeed, DTL incorporates facilities supporting highly economically critical and sometimes life-saving research. In such cases the ‘up-time’, accessibility and professional services level will need to be beyond ‘academic best practice’. Industrial strength support is therefore part of the DTL approach, involving private sectors such as in ICT.

DTL facilities are set up with close involvement of the major life sciences centres in our country, to address their needs and deliver relevant high-end technology output.
DTL offers a sustainable level of state of the art facilities, tuned among the key players to ensure efficiency of investments from public and private funding.

DTL builds upon emerging technology centres of excellence, part of which are developed under the Netherlands Genomics Initiative (NGI), and will provide further access to their technologies. DTL is foreseen to cover facilities in the areas of next generation sequencing, proteomics, metabolomics, and high-end microscopy, as well as the associated infrastructures for data stewardship, data analysis and data integration.

Strong links are made to existing biobanking initiatives. Importantly, DTL will be in continuous flux, as new technologies will come to market and existing one’s become commodities. The DTL board clearly needs to match development of the DTL facilities with Dutch strengths and interests in the international field.