The Toolbox is a key element of the Centre of Biological Signalling Studies (bioss) in Freiburg. Bioss is funded by the Excellence Initiative of the German Federal and State Government and will investigate biological signalling in a new, highly interdisciplinary and cross-systems approach.

The Toolbox will be a resource and information centre for biological materials (plasmids and expression vectors) relevant for signalling science. The goal is to establish a plasmid repository that will make it easier for the research community to share plasmids.

The Toolbox should also rapidly provide signalling scientists and engineers at BIOSS and other institutions worldwide with well-annotated vectors.

The biological material will collected from the scientific community, properly annotated, stored and made accessible to the scientific community inside and outside Freiburg with a high level of quality control.

The Toolbox is a non-profit organization with an open access policy. It will use an online portal (under construction) to makes all materials available to scientists at no costs other  than handling fees.