EMBL Australia Bioinformatics Resource

Full description

The EMBL Australia Bioinformatics Resource, located at The University of Queensland, provides an Australian-based entry to many of the data services of the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI). The EBI is an institute within the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), and is the world’s premier life sciences data resource.

The EMBL Australia Bioinformatics Resource, which is co-located and tightly integrated with the National Computational Infrastructure–Specialised Facility in Bioinformatics (NCI-SFB) at the University of Queensland, replicates the most-used data services of EBI and makes them freely available online to the Australian and international science community.

The EMBL Australia Bioinformatics Resource provides a service function—it is not a research facility, although focused research is required to develop unique, customised data services in selected areas. It is managed in accordance with EMBL policies that emphasise open access to data.

Among the data resources offered by the EMBL Australia Bioinformatics Resource are public-domain genome, DNA and protein sequences, protein structures, and integrated data services for medical and agricultural sciences, biodiversity and biotechnology. Novel datasets and capabilities and integrated data services are being added.

In conjunction with high-performance computing resources and scalable storage, and delivered through high-bandwidth national research networks, the EMBL Australia Bioinformatics Resource enables large-scale integrated analyses that have previously not been feasible.

Analytical tools, such as NCBI-BLAST, PSI-BLAST, ClustalW2 and ENSEMBL, are also available via the EMBL Australia Bioinformatics Resource website. EMBL Australia Bioinformatics Resource website offers simple web interfaces to these tools, enabling their use by a broad range of researchers and students.

The EMBL Australia Bioinformatics Resource, the first of its kind outside the UK, enables new opportunities for large-scale research and collaboration, data analysis and advanced training in Australia and the region. It enhances Australia’s international scientific standing, positions Australia as a premier biomolecular data service provider, and is a key differentiator in attracting investment into Australian life sciences, biotechnology and ICT.