Bioinformatics has become an integral part of life science research, enabling ground-breaking insights into, for example, the genomic basis for health and disease. In recognition of this, the German Ministry for Education and Science BMBF has recently funded a national network of experts – the German Bioinformatics Network “de.NBI” (www.denbi.de). The goal of de.NBI is to help disseminate bioinformatics knowledge and services, and through collaboration with the European Elixir project develop national and European infrastructures for bioinformatics users.

As associated member of the de.NBI, the IKMB will join this important community and contribute to its overarching goal and vision through dedicated workshops as well as expert services in the areas of genome-wide association studies (David Ellinghaus/Andre Franke) and genome assembly/annotation (Marc Höppner).