Description
INB, the Spanish National Bioinformatics Institute, was created in 2003 following the Swiss Bioinformatics Institute (SIB) model of a distributed organization of nodes with a central coordination hub. Since 2015, the INB is the Spanish node of ELIXIR (European Life Science Infrastructure for Biological Information). Since January 2018, the INB is the bioinformatics technology platform for the Institute of Health Carlos III (ISCIII). The INB has increased the participant nodes to 19 research groups distributed across 13 institutions in Spain. The INB is in a strategic position as an interface between developments at the national and international level by research centers, initiatives such as the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH), and organizations such as ELIXIR, and bioinformatic groups directly related to the clinical practice. The two main overarching objectives are maintaining and increasing the alignment of the INB with ELIXIR looking for deeper synergies, while increasing the translational capacity of the INB towards the Spanish National Health System (SNS).
The INB is responsible for the bioinformatics infrastructure offered by Spain in ELIXIR. For this reason, its first objective has been to support the European Genome-phenome Archive (EGA), jointly managed with the EMBL-EBI, which was named ELIXIR Core Data Resource and was included in the recommended ELIXIR Deposition databases; to support RD-connect as one of the main assets for the rare-diseases community in ELIXIR; to participate as co-leaders of the ELIXIR tools platform; to (co)lead and to participate in a number implementation studies. Other relevant activities in the context of ELIXIR include the promotion of FAIR data principles and scientific software development best practices; the participation in the Staff Exchange programme; and the organization of training activities in collaboration with other nodes. As for the second objective, INB impulses and coordinates TransBioNet, the Translational Bioinformatics Network, as an open reference network of 25+ bioinformatics support units working at Health Research Institutions of the National Health System.