EMBL — European Molecular Biology Laboratory

Overview

The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) is a European intergovernmental organisation for life science research and infrastructure, founded in 1974. With six sites across Europe, EMBL performs basic research in molecular biology, operates open-access biological data resources, trains scientists, and develops new technologies. For open neuroscience and the broader life sciences data ecosystem, EMBL’s most consequential role is through EMBL-EBI (European Bioinformatics Institute), which operates biological databases and data services spanning genomics, proteomics, structural biology, and bioimaging.

EMBL Sites

• EMBL Heidelberg (Germany) is the headquarters, covering structural biology, cell biology, genome biology, and developmental biology. It hosts the Bio-Hub of Euro-BioImaging.
• EMBL-EBI (Hinxton, UK) is the European Bioinformatics Institute and operates a broad range of open biological databases and data services.
• EMBL Rome (Italy) focuses on mouse biology and epigenetics.
• EMBL Grenoble (France) specialises in structural biology and operates synchrotron beamlines at ESRF, with relevance to structural neuroscience and drug target characterisation.
• EMBL Hamburg (Germany) covers structural biology with beamlines at PETRA III.
• EMBL Barcelona (Spain) works on tissue biology, disease, and single-cell biology.

EMBL-EBI Databases and Services

EMBL-EBI operates the core European data infrastructure for life sciences, including repositories directly referenced in this vault. EGA is the European Genome-phenome Archive, handling controlled-access human genomics data. EVA is the European Variation Archive, providing open-access variant data. IDR is the Image Data Resource, a curated repository of reference microscopy and imaging datasets. ENA is the European Nucleotide Archive, the primary European repository for raw nucleotide sequence data, synchronising with NCBI SRA and DDBJ under a global partnership. BioImage Archive is the broad-intake repository for all biological image data accompanying publications. BioStudies links data from all EMBL-EBI repositories to their source publications. UniProt provides reference protein sequences and functional annotation. ChEMBL covers bioactive molecules and drug data. Ensembl is the genome browser and annotation resource for human, mouse, and other organisms. PDBe archives macromolecular structures.

Connections

• Operates: EGA, EVA, IDR, ENA, BioImage Archive
• Part of: ELIXIR (EMBL-EBI is the ELIXIR Hub)
• Hosts: Bio-Hub of Euro-BioImaging
• Partners: BBMRI-ERIC, EATRIS, ECRIN

Resources

• https://www.embl.org
• https://www.ebi.ac.uk (EMBL-EBI)
• https://www.embl.org/research/units/ (EMBL research units)