ELIXIR (the European life-sciences Infrastructure for biological Information) is an initiative that will allow

life science Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energy t ...

laboratories across Europe to share and store their research data as part of an organised network. Its goal is to bring together Europe’s research organisations and

data centre A data center (American English) or data centre (British English)See spelling differences. is a building, a dedicated space within a building, or a group of buildings used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunic ...

s to help coordinate the collection,

quality control Quality control (QC) is a process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in production. ISO 9000 defines quality control as "a part of quality management focused on fulfilling quality requirements". This approach places ...

and storage of large amounts of biological data produced by

experiments. ELIXIR aims to ensure that

biological data Biological data refers to a compound or information derived from living organisms and their products. A medicinal compound made from living organisms, such as a serum or a vaccine, could be characterized as biological data. Biological data is highly ...

is integrated into a federated system easily accessible by the scientific community.

Mission

ELIXIR's mission is to build a sustainable European infrastructure for biological information, supporting life science research and its translation to medicine and the environment, the bio-industries and society. The results from biological experiments produce vast amounts of results that are stored as data using

computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

. European countries have invested heavily in research that produces, analyses and stores biological information. However, the collection, storage, archiving and integration of these large amounts of data presents a problem that cannot be tackled by one country alone. ELIXIR represents the joining of independent

bioscience ''BioScience'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal that is published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. It was established in 1964 and was preceded by the ''AIBS Bulletin'' (1951–19 ...

facilities to create an integrated network that addresses the complex problem of biological data storage and management. By providing a sustainable and distributed structure for handling data and data retrieval tools, ELIXIR hopes to secure Europe-wide investment in

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

, providing the stability to conduct research in all areas of life science, both in academia and industry.

Organisation and structure

ELIXIR is an inter-governmental organisation which brings together existing

resources. It is coordinated by the ELIXIR Hub, based alongside the European Molecular Biology Laboratory’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 Well ...

(

EMBL The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) is an intergovernmental organization dedicated to molecular biology research and is supported by 27 member states, two prospect states, and one associate member state. EMBL was created in 1974 and ...

-EBI) on the

Wellcome Trust Genome Campus The Wellcome Genome Campus is a scientific research campus built in the grounds of Hinxton Hall, Hinxton in Cambridgeshire, England. Campus The Campus is home to some institutes and organisations in genomics and computational biology. The C ...

in Hinxton, Cambridge. The members of the ELIXIR consortium are European countries, represented by their governments and ministries; the scientific community in each member country develops thei
national Node
which operates the services and resources that are part of ELIXIR. Each ELIXIR Node is itself a network of national life science organisations, coordinated by a lead institute.

European Molecular Biology Laboratory The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) is an intergovernmental organization dedicated to molecular biology research and is supported by 27 member states, two prospect states, and one associate member state. EMBL was created in 1974 and ...

is an intergovernmental organisation so it is the only Node that is not associated with a country. ELIXIR focuses efforts around five central areas of activity, referred to a
Platforms
These cover Data, Tools, Compute, Interoperability and Training. Work in these areas is intended to improve access to open data resources and tools by improving connectivity, discoverability and access to computational power, as well as developing training for users and service providers to meet these aims. ELIXIR supports users addressing the Grand Challenges in life science research across diverse domains. ELIXIR supports
range of self-selected Communities
which focus on high-level topics such as ‘Human Data’ and ‘Plant Sciences’ to more specific and focused disciplines such as ‘Metabolomics’ and ‘Intrinsically Disordered Proteins’, as well as a community dedicated to the ‘Galaxy’ resource. These communities are in place to develop bioinformatic and data standards, services and training that are required to facilitate that community to reach their scientific goals.

Participants

As of August 2019 the following countries and

EMBL-EBI 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 Well ...

have signed th
ELIXIR Consortium Agreement (ECA)
in order to become a member of ELIXIR: Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Cyprus is an Observer country, working towards ratifying the ECA in the near future. Countries that have signed the ECA are allocated representation on th
ELIXIR Board
The preparatory phase of ELIXIR was coordinated by Professor Dame

Janet Thornton Dame Janet Maureen Thornton, (born 23 May 1949) is a senior scientist and director emeritus at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), part of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). She is one of the world's leading researcher ...

. The Founding Director of ELIXIR, Dr Niklas Blomberg, took up his position in the new ELIXIR Hub in Cambridge in May 2013.

Countries on Board

* EMBL - Prof. Edith Heard, Dr. Alvis Brazma * Belgium - Dr.

Laurence Lenoir Laurence is an English and French given name (usually female in French and usually male in English). The English masculine name is a variant of Lawrence and it originates from a French form of the Latin ''Laurentius'', a name meaning "man from L ...

* Czech Republic - Prof Jaroslav Koča * Denmark - Prof.

Anders Krogh Anders Krogh is a bioinformatician at the University of Copenhagen, where he leads the university's bioinformatics center. He is known for his pioneering work on the use of hidden Markov models in bioinformatics (together with David Haussler), an ...

* Estonia - Prof.

Lili Milani ''Lili'' is a 1953 American film released by MGM. It stars Leslie Caron as a touchingly naïve French girl whose emotional relationship with a carnival puppeteer is conducted through the medium of four puppets. The film won the Academy Award for ...

* Finland - Dr.

Per Öster Per is a Latin preposition which means "through" or "for each", as in per capita. Per or PER may also refer to: Places * IOC country code for Peru * Pér, a village in Hungary * Chapman code for Perthshire, historic county in Scotland Mat ...

* France - Dr.

Frédéric Boccard Frédéric and Frédérick are the French versions of the common male given name Frederick. They may refer to: In artistry: * Frédéric Back, Canadian award-winning animator * Frédéric Bartholdi, French sculptor * Frédéric Bazille, Impress ...

* Germany - Prof.

Rolf Backofen Rolf is a male given name and a surname. It originates in the Germanic name ''Hrolf'', itself a contraction of ''Hrodwulf'' ( Rudolf), a conjunction of the stem words ''hrod'' ("renown") + ''wulf'' ("wolf"). The Old Norse cognate is ''Hrólfr''. ...

, Prof.

Alexander Goesmann Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...

* Greece - Prof.

Christos Ouzounis Christos A. Ouzounis is a Computational biology, computational biologist, a director of research at the CERTH, and Professor of Bioinformatics at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Aristotle University in Thessaloniki. Education Ouzounis receiv ...

, Prof.

Artemis Hatzigeorgiou In ancient Greek mythology and Ancient Greek religion, religion, Artemis (; grc-gre, Ἄρτεμις) is the goddess of the hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, nature, vegetation, childbirth, Kourotrophos, care of children, and chastity. ...

* Hungary - Dr.

László Patthy László () is a Hungarian male given name and surname after the King-Knight Saint Ladislaus I of Hungary (1077–1095). It derives from Ladislav, a variant of Vladislav. Other versions are Lessl or Laszly. The name has a history of being frequen ...

* Ireland - Dr.

Maria Nash Maria may refer to: People * Mary, mother of Jesus * Maria (given name), a popular given name in many languages Place names Extraterrestrial *170 Maria, a Main belt S-type asteroid discovered in 1877 *Lunar maria (plural of ''mare''), large, da ...

* Israel - Dr.

Yossi Kalifa Yossi is a Hebrew given name, usually a short and nickname for Yosef (equivalent to English Joseph). It may refer to: People * Abba Yossi – mythology figure * Country Yossi – American singer and radio personality *Yossi Abu – Israeli execu ...

* Italy - Prof.

Rita Casadio Rita Casadio is a Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Bologna. Career Her work in machine learning has been used for protein structure prediction and methods from her group have been highly ranked in international competitions, such a ...

* Luxembourg - Prof.

Rudi Balling Rudi Balling (born 17 October 1953 in Daun, Germany, Daun, Rhineland-Palatinate) is a German geneticist. He is the founding director of the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine at the University of Luxembourg (2009-2021) He has served as Pre ...

, Dr. Regina Becker * Netherlands - Dr. Ruben Kok * Norway - Prof. Rein Aasland, Prof.

Stig Omholt Stig or STIG may refer to: People * Stig (given name) * Nickname of Robert Stigwood (1934–2016), musical act manager Arts and entertainment * The Stig, a masked racing driver on the UK television show ''Top Gear'' * Stig (singer), Finnish perf ...

* Portugal - Prof. Isabel Rocha * Slovenia - Prof. Damjana Rozman * Sweden - Prof. Björn Andersson * Spain - Prof.

Ferran Sanz Ferran () is a commune A commune is an alternative term for an intentional community. Commune or comună or comune or other derivations may also refer to: Administrative-territorial entities * Commune (administrative division), a municipality ...

* Switzerland - Prof. Christian von Mering * United Kingdom - Dr. Chris Rawlings

Funding

By the end of 2012 ELIXIR had completed its five-year preparatory phase funded by the EU’s

Seventh Framework Programme The Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development, also called Framework Programmes or abbreviated FP1 to FP9, are funding programmes created by the European Union/European Commission to support and foster research in the Europea ...

as part of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) process. In 2015 ELIXIR was awarded €19 Million HORIZON 2020 funding to run the EXCELERATE project. This project enabled ELIXIR to coordinate and extend national and international data resources and ran until 31 August 2019. ELIXIR has also set up collaborations to apply for other large scale funding for other EU projects, in which it is also involved in an organisational capacity, for example for the CORBEL, FAIRplus, and EOSC-Life projects. Each member state jointly contributes towards the funding of the ELIXIR Hub in proportion to their GDP. Some countries have allocated new funds to contribute towards their ELIXIR Node. The services and activities of the ELIXIR Nodes will continue to be funded by national agencies. Collectively, ELIXIR members will apply for additional external funding.

References

External links

ESFRI Strategy Report on Research InfrastructuresELIXIR website
{{Authority control Bioinformatics organizations European Union and science and technology Information technology organizations based in Europe South Cambridgeshire District Science and technology in Cambridgeshire Wellcome Trust