Alexander Fleming Biomedical Sciences Research Center

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The Biomedical Sciences Research Center “Alexander Fleming” (BSRC Al. Fleming) is a government, non-profit research center in Vari, a suburb of Athens, Greece. It was established in 1995 and began operations in 1998. The center is named after the scientist Alexander Fleming, with support from his widow Amalia Fleming, who helped create the conditions for its founding. Land for the project was granted in 1966, and construction took place in several phases, finishing in 1993. The main building, about 6,000 square meters, was funded mainly by the EU, and the center sits under Greece’s General Secretariat of Research and Technology.

BSRC Fleming runs 14 research groups across four institutes: Immunology, Molecular Oncology, Molecular Biology and Genetics, and Cellular & Developmental Biology. Its mission is to study the molecular mechanisms of biological processes in health and disease and to translate findings into medical advances, with a focus on immunity and inflammation, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases. Key research areas include functional genomics and proteomics, molecular and cellular immunology, animal models of human disease, gene regulation, DNA repair, stem cell differentiation, epigenetics, learning and memory, and extracellular matrix biology.

The center has developed several transgenic animal models for rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, and multiple sclerosis, which support collaborations with international pharmaceutical companies. It operates core facilities such as Expression Profiling, Flow Cytometry, Protein Chemistry, Transgenics and Gene Targeting, and a BioIT Unit, all serving internal projects and external partners. An Innovation and Enterprise Unit helps protect and apply the center’s research.

BSRC Fleming runs its own Animal House, housing about 22,000 mice in a 900-square-meter facility opened in 2001. The Animal House provides breeding, hosting of mice (including genetically altered lines), phenotyping services, and training programs, serving both internal and external researchers. Since 2009, it has been a full member of EMMA, the European Mouse Mutant Archive.