Functional genetic variation in humans: comprehensive map published
GEUVADIS project presents the largest-ever dataset linking human genomes to gene activity at the level of RNA.
Wired for change
A new study of gene expression reveals the first steps of evolution in gene regulation in mice. Published in the journal Cell, the research has implications for the study of differences in gene regulation between people.
Quick facts and figures
What is the European Bioinformatics Institute?
- The European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) was established in 1994, and is part of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL).
- EMBL-EBI is located on the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus in Hinxton, near Cambridge in the UK, and shares a campus with the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.
- As of January 2012 EMBL-EBI has 520 members of staff, including postdocs, predocs, basic research PIs, software developers, scientific data curators, grants officers, user experience analysts and many others.
What is bioinformatics?
Bioinformatics is the application of computer technology to the storage, management and analysis of data from life science experiments.
One of the biggest challenges in biology today is analysing the massive volumes of data created in “high-throughput” experiments, for example DNA sequencing. Bioinformatics makes it possible to extract meaningful information from a sea of data. It provides the means to pull together many different kinds of information so that we can begin piecing together the great puzzle of how biological systems work.
Did you know...
- The storage capacity of computing hardware doubles every 18 months but new biological data are doubling every 9 months. These rates are increasing.
- The cost of sequencing has fallen dramatically, and the major bottleneck in life science research today is data analysis.
- Users of Europe’s biological databases range from clinical specialists to environmental researchers and computer scientists.
- The EMBL-EBI website is visited by approximately 11,000 unique IP, or web addresses, a day. That could represent many more people because, just like phone numbers, an IP address might represent an individual or an entire organisation.
- The data storage capacity of EMBL-EBI is approximately 18 petabytes (PB, or 1x1015 bytes).
What is EMBL?
The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) is at the forefront of innovation in life sciences research, technology development and transfer, and provides outstanding training and services to the scientific community in its member states. This publicly funded, non-profit institute is housed at five sites in Europe whose expertise covers the whole spectrum of molecular biology.
EMBL research units: Heidelberg, Germany (EMBL headquarters); EMBL-EBI in Hinxton, UK; Grenoble, France; Hamburg, Germany; and Monterotondo, Italy.
EMBL member states: Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Associate member state Australia.