Strategic Plan 2022-2026

By the operational management: Malin Bäckström, Wolfgang Knecht, Tomas Nyman, Uwe Sauer, Hanna Tegel, Kristina Hedfalk and Göran Karlsson.

Approved by PPS steering committee, December 1, 2022.

Introduction to PPS

Protein Production Sweden is a national distributed research infrastructure established in 2022 with funding from the Swedish Research Council and the participating universities. PPS focuses on providing access to the production and purification of proteins for all Swedish researchers in academia as well as industry. The infrastructure is comprised of four geographical nodes in Gothenburg, Lund, Stockholm and Umeå and is located at the University of Gothenburg (host university), Lund University, Karolinska Institutet, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) and Umeå University.

PPS offers services within all steps in protein production (Fig. 1) in six different expression systems (E. coli, P. pastoris, insect cells (BEVS), plant cells, mammalian cells and cell-free expression). PPS also offers two Gateway modules aiming at providing expertise in, and producing speciality reagents for specific use in, either different neutron scattering and diffraction techniques or X-ray crystallography.

This page presents an overall vision for PPS’ position in the Swedish research landscape. To reach this vision, PPS formulates six goals for the present funding period (2022-2026). The six goals are set into context and action points, which address each of them, are formulated. The activities within each action point that are required to reach the goals will then be formulated in the operational plans for each year.

The overall vision for PPS

PPS shall become and remain the preferred provider of proteins for research purposes for Swedish researchers from academia, public sector and commercial entities. 

To reach this vision, PPS works towards the following six goals:

1. To offer services of the highest possible technical and scientific quality, and expertise within production and purification of proteins, in accordance with the researchers’ needs
2. To be visible and accessible to the Swedish research community as a professional, united and efficient infrastructure with high capacity.
3. To be acknowledged as an expert infrastructure on a national and international level. This includes the Swedish user base of neutron sources and synchrotrons, in particular ESS and MAX IV laboratory, in connection to the gateway modules, and also users of other Swedish research infrastructures that need proteins, in connection to all other modules.
4. To minimize the hurdles for use of PPS by academic and non-academic entities, to increase the user base and promote the Swedish biotech industry.
5. To be prepared to contribute to societal challenges whenever needed.
6. To be an attractive workplace, retain experienced staff and maintain an equal gender policy.

Actions for each of the six goals

Goal 1: To offer services of the highest possible technical and scientific quality, and expertise within production and purification of proteins, in accordance with the researchers’ needs.

Actions to achieve goal 1:

a) Assure that PPS is at the forefront of scientific and technical development in the area of protein production.

b) Ensure continuous competence development for the PPS staff.

c) Define requirements for quality control for proteins delivered by PPS, that are appropriate for the intended use of the protein.

d) Allow a certain part of the infrastructure’s capacity to focus on difficult projects and method development, as this will increase the general knowledge and competence for PPS staff.

e) Establish new or update existing methods for different types of labelling of proteins in various expression systems (isotopically labelled amino acids, non-natural amino acids and more).

f) Formulate guidelines directed to PPS users on how to publish and properly acknowledge PPS services.

g) Maintain a continuous dialog with the PPS users to best possibly understand their needs, to advise on best practices and, if necessary, adapt the project accordingly. This might include risk assessments in the projects. Strategic plan for Protein Production Sweden (PPS) 2022-2026 3(5) 

Goal 2: To be visible and accessible to the Swedish research community as a professional, united and efficient infrastructure with high capacity.

Actions to achieve goal 2:

Visible and accessible:

a) Keep the PPS homepage updated with clear information on available services and how to access them.

b) Spread information about PPS through coordinated visits to universities and infrastructures in Sweden every second year. Make these “information tours” accessible also to Swedish biotech industry interested in protein-related questions.

c) Persistantly present PPS at relevant conferences/meetings/workshops.

d) Perform user surveys (regular evaluations to collect information about user needs and their satisfaction with PPS) that will be included in the annual reports.

e) Make PPS visible on social media such as LinkedIn and Twitter.

Professional:

f) Maintain an open and frank communication with users regarding expected timelines and transparency of costs, to ensure no unpleasant surprises for the user.

g) Treat all background information relating to projects as confidential unless the responsible user agrees that it can be shared.

h) Establish clear guidelines as to the ownership and intellectual property of different types of generated materials and results, within the framework set by the Swedish Research Council and Swedish legislation.

i) Identify and adopt best practices for the transportation of proteins between PPS nodes and/or between PPS and our users.

United:

j) Present PPS in a uniform way at local platform homepages as well as at the common PPS homepage.

k) Establish a single entry-point for project applications through the PPS homepage.

l) Define clear criteria for distribution of projects between the different nodes. m. Harmonize user fees within and between expression systems.

n) Standardize the way projects are reported to the users.

Cost-efficient:

o) PPS services shall be more cost-efficient for a researcher compared to the costs for students, post-docs and other staff in the research groups doing the same work.

p) Within PPS we can save rescources by avoiding re-inventing the wheel each time and instead share knowledge between nodes. Besides, accumulated knowledge avoids making foolish mistakes.

High-capacity:

q) Define clear criteria for selection of projects when there is a high demand.

r) Accept project applications also from other countries when there is available capacity.

s) Back-up for other PPS nodes whenever possible.

Goal 3. To be acknowledged as an expert infrastructure on a national and international level.

This includes the Swedish user base of neutron sources and synchrotrons, in particular ESS and MAX IV laboratory, in connection to the gateway modules, and also users of other Swedish research infrastructures that need proteins, in connection to all other modules.

Actions to achieve goal 3:

a) Besides providing research support and develop and apply continuous improvements of methods and capabilities, PPS should also aim for transferring such information to the users.

b) PPS shall organize or actively participate in courses and workshops relating to protein production.

c) New methods and protocols shall be made available through publications from PPS staff. This also includes methods for protein labelling.

d) Maintain strong contacts with ESS and MAXIV laboratory. The gateway modules (4.1 and 4.2) focus on this and aim to increase the Swedish user base for these infrastructures. This can also be of potential benefit for companies.

e) Establish close contacts with other local and national infrastructures that require proteins, in order to establish stable and seamless workflows for user projects. This includes, but is not limited to, the different platforms of SciLifeLab.

f) Participate as stakeholder in the Integrated Structural Biology platform of SciLifeLab.

g) Occasionally offer possibilities for users to visit or work in our labs to learn methods that can be brought to their respective labs. This is mainly applicable when working with very fragile proteins that need to be produced close in time and space to the intended experiments.

h) Continue to engage in European/international contexts for example in P4EU, also with the ambition to organize a P4EU meeting or other scientific meeting.

i) Engagement and (work towards) membership also in other relevant organizations, such as EATRIS, CTLS and Instruct.

Goal 4. To minimize the hurdles for use of PPS by academic and non-academic entities, to increase PPS’ user base and promote the Swedish biotech industry.

Actions to achieve goal 4:

a) Establish a template for project contracts that is easy to use and that can be accepted by the participating universities. This should comply with the requirements of the Swedish Research Council as well as Swedish legislation.

b) Actively follow up on the status of the laws and regulations that allow Swedish universities to charge user fees for the use of their infrastructures.

c) Seek advice from other infrastructures that already provide access to their infrastructure to companies.

Goal 5. To be prepared to contribute to societal challenges whenever needed.

Actions to achieve goal 5:

a) PPS shall have a plan for how to quickly react in future emergency situations similar to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

b) To communicate clearly how and in what way PPS can support with the production of proteins that may be needed in different scenarios. In this way PPS may also contribute to the Swedish “totalförsvar”.

Goal 6. To be an attractive workplace, retain experienced staff and maintain an equal gender policy.

Actions to achieve goal 6:

a) Participate in the efforts towards the development of new career tracks for infrastructure personnel within host universities and at a national level.

b) Work for the sustainability of the infrastructure on a long-term basis.

c) Maintain close contacts with the academic research community that depends on recombinant and other proteins, as well as international protein production platforms, to ensure recruitment of highly qualified staff scientists to PPS and to provide a supporting and stimulating work environment.

d) Ensure equal treatment of our staff and of incoming project applications in accordance with PPS’ gender equality plan, that will be followed up yearly