Big Data Exploitation in Life Sciences

Modern life sciences use increasingly complex analytical methods that generate large amounts of data to be analysed. This requires extensive knowledge and powerful bioinformatics tools.
The German Network for Bioinformatics Infrastructure – de.NBI is contributing to solve this challenge.
de.NBI is a national, academic, and non-profit research infrastructure initiated in 2015 as a joint project of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
 
Our main goals are:  
 
  • Provision of comprehensive first-class bioinformatics tools & services for the life sciences and biomedicine
  • Delivery of Bioinformatics training through a wide range of workshops and courses
  • Provision of cloud computing resources for academia in Germany
  • Transfer of expertise between academia and industry through our Industrial Forum
  • Fostering the cooperation between the German bioinformatics community and international bioinformatics networks such as ELIXIR Europe
The network provides bioinformatics services and comprehensive compute resources to researchers in the life sciences and biomedicine in Germany and Europe. In addition, our members offer training events, courses, and summer schools on tools, standards, data management, workflows, and extensive compute resources to assist scientists to analyse and visualize their datamore effectively. 
 
The de.NBI consists of eight interconnected service centers plus one coordination unit including more than 40 research, service and infrastructure groups with about 150 bioinformaticians actively contributing. In addition, it is possible to apply for an associated partnership with de.NBI network.
 
Since August 2016 the German Node of ELIXIR, ELIXIR Germany, is run by de.NBI partners.
 
From 2022, the Forschungszentrum Jülich as a member of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers has been entrusted with the continuation of the de.NBI.

Introduction Video 

History

In May 2013, the funding guidelines for a German network for bioinformatics infrastructure (de.NBI) were published by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The aim of this funding line was the establishment of infrastructure that provides solutions for the ‘big data’ problem in the life sciences through bioinformatics services and training. In November 2015, a second call for de.NBI partner projects was announced to complete the range of topics. The de.NBI programme finally launched in March 2015 and the partner projects began their work in November 2016. 

Coordinator of the project and Head of the German ELIXIR Node was Alfred Pühler, Bielefeld University, (2015-2021).

The BMBF funding was granted 2015 to 2021. By decision of the Federal Government from November 2020, the de.NBI will received an long-term funding from the BMBF to be continued by the Forschungszentrum Jülich, a member of the Helmholtz Association of German Reserach Centers.