The European Molecular Biology network (EMBnet) is an international scientific network and interest group that aims to enhance

bioinformatics Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field of science that develops methods and Bioinformatics software, software tools for understanding biological data, especially when the data sets are large and complex. Bioinformatics uses biology, ...

services by bringing together bioinformatics expertises and capacities. On 2011 EMBnet has 37 nodes spread over 32 countries. The nodes include bioinformatics related

university A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

departments, research institutes and national service providers.

Operations

The main task of most EMBnet nodes is to provide their national scientific community with access to bioinformatics databanks, specialised

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

and sufficient computing resources and expertise. EMBnet is also working in the fields of bioinformatics training and

software development Software development is the process of designing and Implementation, implementing a software solution to Computer user satisfaction, satisfy a User (computing), user. The process is more encompassing than Computer programming, programming, wri ...

. Examples of software created by EMBnet members are:

EMBOSS EMBOSS is a free c software analysis package developed for the needs of the molecular biology and bioinformatics user community. The software automatically copes with data in a variety of formats and even allows transparent retrieval of sequence ...

, wEMBOSS,

UTOPIA A utopia ( ) typically describes an imagined community or society that possesses highly desirable or near-perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia (book), Utopia'', which describes a fictiona ...

. EMBnet represents a wide user group and works closely together with the database producers such as EMBL's

European Bioinformatics Institute The European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) is an intergovernmental organization (IGO) which, as part of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) family, focuses on research and services in bioinformatics. It is located on the Wel ...

(EBI), the

Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics is an academic not-for-profit foundation which federates bioinformatics activities throughout Switzerland. The institute was established on 30 March 1998 and its mission is to provide core bioinform ...

(

Swiss-Prot UniProt is a freely accessible database of protein sequence and functional information, many entries being derived from genome sequencing projects. It contains a large amount of information about the biological function of proteins derived from ...

), the

Munich Information Center for Protein Sequences The Munich Information Center for Protein Sequences (MIPS) was a research center hosted at the Institute for Bioinformatics (IBI) at Neuherberg, Germany with a focus on genome oriented bioinformatics, in particular on the systematic analysis of ge ...

(MIPS), in order to provide a uniform coverage of services throughout

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

. EMBnet is registered in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

as a public foundation (

Stichting A () is a Dutch legal entity with limited liability, not aiming to make profit, with no members or share capital, that exists for a specific purpose that is serving a public, social or an idealistic interest. A stichting is allowed to make profit ...

). Since its creation in 1988, EMBnet has evolved from an informal network of individuals in charge of maintaining

biological databases Biological databases are libraries of biological sciences, collected from scientific experiments, published literature, high-throughput experiment technology, and computational analysis. They contain information from research areas including geno ...

into the only worldwide organization bringing bioinformatics professionals to work together to serve the expanding fields of

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinians, Augustinian ...

and

molecular biology Molecular biology is a branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecule, molecular basis of biological activity in and between Cell (biology), cells, including biomolecule, biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactio ...

. Although composed predominantly of academic nodes, EMBnet gains an important added dimension from its industrial members. The success of EMBnet is attracting increasing numbers of organizations outside

to join. EMBnet has a tried-and-tested infrastructure to organise training courses, give technical help and help its members effectively interact and respond to the rapidly changing needs of biological research in a way no single institute is able to do. In 2005 the organization created additional types of node to allow more than one member per country. The new category denomination is "associated node".

Coordination and organization

EMBnet is governed by the Annual General Meetings (AGM), and is coordinated by an executive board (EB) that oversees the activities of three project committees: *Education and Training committee (E&T). Educational support includes a series of courses organised in the member countries and languages, the committee works as well on the continued development of on-line accessible education materials. *Publicity and Public Relations committee (P&PR). This committee is responsible for promoting any type of EMBnet activities, for the advertisement of products and services provided by the EMBnet community, as well as for proposing and developing new strategies aiming to enhance EMBnet's visibility, and to take care of public relationships with EMBnet communities and related networks/societies. *Technical Manager committee (TM). The TM PC provides assistance and practical help to the participating nodes and their users.

Achievements

EMBnet had the first

gopher Pocket gophers, commonly referred to simply as gophers, are burrowing rodents of the family Geomyidae. The roughly 41 speciesSearch results for "Geomyidae" on thASM Mammal Diversity Database are all endemic to North and Central America. They ar ...

and

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is an information system that enables Content (media), content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond Information technology, IT specialists and hobbyis ...

servers in

biology Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...

(CSC BioBox) EMBnet was the first to come up with solutions for daily database updates using Internet (NDT), distributed computing (HASSLE) and efficient database browsing and linking (Sequence Retrieval System, SRS). The Ping project was created as a means to obtain continuous information about network efficiency across the whole of

. EMBnet is committed to bringing the latest software

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of Rigour#Mathematics, mathematically rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algo ...

s to the user free of charge (Extended GCG or EGCG) and continues to develop state of the art public software (

).
EMBER
a European Multimedia Bioinformatics Educational Resource. EMBER was a European Union (EU) funded project aiming to develop a suite of

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms, such as Text (literary theory), writing, Sound, audio, images, animations, or video, into a single presentation. T ...

bioinformatics educational tools
EMBER
comprises a self-contained,

interactive Across the many fields concerned with interactivity, including information science, computer science, human-computer interaction, communication, and industrial design, there is little agreement over the meaning of the term "interactivity", but mo ...

Web tutorial in bioinformatics, & the equivalent stand-alone course on

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains computer data storage, data computers can read, but not write or erase. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold b ...

. The EMBnet community was involved in the creation of the peer reviewed journal Briefings in Bioinformatics (BiB). BiB was also supported by an educational grant from EMBnet. The Global Organisation for Bioinformatics Learning, Education and Training (GOBLET) was formed as a nonprofit foundation at the 2012 EMBnet annual meeting.

Journal

Starting from 1994 and up to 2009 EMBnet published ''EMBnet.news''. Its primary goal was to bring information and report on the latest news and developments from the network to the user community. Established in 2010 as the successor of the ''EMBnet.news'' (with volume numbering continuing uninterrupted), ''EMBnet.journal'' is a

peer-reviewed Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...

open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...

scientific journal In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication designed to further the progress of science by disseminating new research findings to the scientific community. These journals serve as a platform for researchers, schola ...

publishing original research and technical papers in

. The journal contains two main sections, one for research articles, reviews, and technical notes, and one for non-peer-reviewed commentary, reportage, user-guides, training information, and news. ''EMBnet.journal'' publishes also conference proceedings and meeting abstracts as supplements.

References

External links

*
EMBER

EMBnet.Journal
{{Authority control Bioinformatics organizations Information technology organizations based in Europe Scientific organizations established in 1988 Science and technology in Cambridgeshire South Cambridgeshire District