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

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 ...

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 institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

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 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 ...

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 conceiving, specifying, designing, programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications, frameworks, or other software components. Software development invol ...

. Examples of software created by EMBnet members are:

EMBOSS EMBOSS is a free open source 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 ...

, wEMBOSS,

UTOPIA A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia (book), Utopia'', describing a fictional ...

. 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 Well ...

(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 bioinfor ...

(

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 large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

. EMBnet is registered in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

as a public foundation (

Stichting A ''stichting'' () is a Dutch legal entity with limited liability, but no members or share capital, that exists for a specific purpose. This form of entity makes it possible to separate functions of ownership and control. Its use has been pioneered ...

). 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 genom ...

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 Augustinian friar wor ...

and

molecular biology Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. The study of chemical and physi ...

. 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 are ...

and

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...

servers in

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

(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 rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specificat ...

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, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradition ...

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 A tutorial, in education, is a method of transferring knowledge and may be used as a part of a learning process. More interactivity, interactive and specific than a book or a lecture, a tutorial seeks to teach by example and supply the informati ...

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 data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both comput ...

. The EMBnet community was involved in the creation of the peer reviewed journal

Briefings in Bioinformatics ''Briefings in Bioinformatics'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering bioinformatics, including reviews of databases and analytical tools for genetics and molecular biology. It also publishes primary research papers on novel bioinforma ...

(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 research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...

scientific journal In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. Content Articles in scientific journals are mostly written by active scientists such as s ...

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 Biomedical informatics journals Information technology organizations based in Europe Open access journals Organizations established in 1988 Publications established in 2010 Quarterly journals Science and technology in Cambridgeshire South Cambridgeshire District