Affiliate Spotlight: NBIC

By Ruben Kok and Esther Thole of NBIC

NBIC: The Dutch Bioinformatics Hub
The Netherlands Bioinformatics Centre (NBIC) represents the academic and industrial bioinformatics community in the Netherlands. Since its start in 2004, NBIC has been pivotal in bringing the initially scattered field together to form a strong and dynamic community that performs internationally competitive bioinformatics research and provides bioinformatics expertise, infrastructure and personnel to support large-scale research initiatives within the Dutch life science sectors. NBIC is a public-private partnership and is supported by the Dutch government through the Netherlands Genomics Initiative (www.genomics.nl).

Research, Support, Education
The NBIC network of scientists consists of bioinformaticians and computational biologists working on a broad array of life sciences topics: from cancer genomics to industrial fermentation, from crop research to toxicogenomics and from ecogenomics to nutrition. Scientific programmers and software engineers help to create bioinformatics tools and toolboxes and to set up common infrastructures that support life science projects. Throughout the year, NBIC organizes numerous scientific meetings and other events to stimulate dissemination of knowledge, tools and expertise. To train the next generation of bioinformaticians, the NBIC community undertakes a broad array of education activities, ranging from advanced courses offered by the NBIC PhD School to programs for high school students.

Internationally Active
Next to the central role it plays in the Netherlands, NBIC takes an active position in the worldwide bioinformatics community. NBIC scientists participate in a growing number of international research projects and international partnerships are established to support high-level bioinformatics education. For example: August this year, NBIC and SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics organize a joint bioinformatics Summer School on “Quantitative imaging and modeling of biological-processes” in Amsterdam.

Concept Web Alliance
NBIC scientists actively contribute to several standardization programs, including the World Wide Web consortium (W3C), BioCatalogue and the Concept Web Alliance (CWA), a global NBIC initiative. With CWA, NBIC and partners aim to organize an international public-private alliance to develop practical solutions to 'interoperability' of scholarly information and data resources in the life sciences. After New York (2009), the next CWA meeting will be held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands in November 2010, under the title “Connecting Biobanks”.

ISCB Connection
NBIC is a regional affiliate of the ISCB, as the Society’s first Affiliated Regional Center, and actively participates in education-related initiatives, such as the ISCB Education Committee. In addition, two young NBIC researchers are now chair and secretary of the ISCB Student Council.

Interested in what's going on in the Dutch bioinformatics and computational biology community under NBIC? Interested in collaboration in research, support or education?

Visit our website at www.nbic.nl or contact us at office@nbic.nl.