The objective in this WP is to research, design, develop and evaluate state-of-the-art virtual environments towards an e-infrastructure for biomedical research involving large data collections or complex/long data analysis. Using these environments it will be easier and more efficient for end-users (clinicians, radiologists, medical physicists, neuroscientists, bio-informaticians) to perform collaborative data analysis and management on research infrastructures such as grids, clouds, desktop grids and advanced instruments. In addition, collaboration, sharing and reuse of methodology and data will be supported and stimulated by these environments.

The target virtual environments will provide improved (generic) front-ends to grid infrastructures that

1. are friendly to end-users, adopting modern interactive graphical interfaces and web protocols;
2. take into account realistic usage scenarios of selected biomedical research applications, in particular imaging;
3. are flexible to operate with heterogeneous grid middleware and distributed infrastructures; and
4. can be extended and tailored to specific needs of other life science applications.