Cutting-edge lab training courses are coming to Europe. The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, is building a 16,000-square-metre Advanced Training Centre with a 450-person conference room, teaching labs, seminar rooms and an exhibition area.

Due to be completed in September, it will offer conferences and workshops on topics such as identifying protein structures, using biological databases and learning new imaging techniques. Although EMBL emphasizes graduate and postdoc training, the centre will hold conferences and workshops for scientists at all career stages.

EMBL sees this as the European counterpart to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) in New York, says Matthias Hentze, associate director and coordinator of the centre. “Europe lacks such a centre,” he adds. EMBL will supplement, not supplant, the CSHL's renowned programmes, he notes. Many courses and conferences at the CSHL are over-subscribed, or can be offered only intermittently. Some conferences will be available at both facilities, allowing more participants in hot fields. EMBL's central location will also save European scientists travel time and costs, Hentze says.

EMBL has also found a way to help visitors save some money. Leica Microsystems of Wetzlar, Germany, has committed €50,000 (US$63,000) per year, and Perkin-Elmer of Waltham, Massachusetts, €25,000 a year, for courses and conferences at the centre for its first three years. This is important because of the research and development funding disparity in the European Union, says Hentze. “There are many places in Europe where funding is very, very small — particularly in eastern Europe and some countries in the south. We will be able to host conferences at a low fee,” he says.

Hentze says that support from the two firms and other anticipated sponsors will keep conference fees to €400–500 per person and pay entire costs for 200 fellows. “To maximize impact, we will probably use this support for partial and complete 'attendance fellowships' for the needy, rather than spreading it evenly,” he says.

The training labs will use equipment from both Leica and Perkin-Elmer. Jörg Fleckenstein, senior manager of resource development at EMBL, says that “they can showpiece their equipment in their training courses, if scientific rationale supports it”. He expects that additional sponsors will provide funds for more fellowships.