The EMBL Australia Bioinformatics Resource (EMBL-ABR) was a significant initiative under the associate membership to EMBL.
Since 2019, all activities carried out under EMBL-ABR have rolled over into the Bioplatforms Australia (NCRIS-funded) Australian BioCommons, under new funding agreements and led by Associate Professor Andrew Lonie.
Please go to the Australian BioCommons website for details.
The EMBL Australia Bioinformatics Resource (EMBL-ABR) was hosted at Melbourne Bioinformatics (formerly VLSCI) through a funding agreement between the University of Melbourne and Bioplatforms Australia.
Critical to Australia’s life science infrastructure, EMBL-ABR was a coordinated, national approach to support Australia to maintain and extend its ability to deliver impact and benefit through national research collaborations and participation in global life science data initiatives such as Big Data to Knowledge (NIH), CyVerse (NSF) and EMBL-EBI and ELIXIR (Europe). Globally, these initiatives were established to support researchers who, through sharing, exploring and analysing large datasets, are driving the economic, social and health benefits and maximising the impact of data-driven science.
Bioplatforms Australia general manager Andrew Gilbert said the Australian Biocommons would continue the good work of EMBL-ABR, as well as provide an ambitious new digital infrastructure capability that will enhance Australian research in its ability to understand the molecular basis of life across environmental, agricultural and biomedical science.
“EMBL-ABR produced good results. It delivered a financed plan and material scientific results (such as the ‘Koala genome’ paper on the cover of Nature Genetics), all supported through its privileged access to EMBL-EBI,” Mr Gilbert said.
“All of this was possible because of Australia’s membership of EMBL.”
For bioinformatics news and support, go to the Australian BioCommons website.