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In addition to the NCBI site, which is certainly the best known bioinformatics site,

there are also good introductory sites at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI).

These are especially helpful for those people who also like programming modules and are

looking for information at an advanced level:

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https://www.ebi.ac.uk

For example:

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https://www.ebi.ac.uk/services

“We maintain the world’s most comprehensive range of freely available and up-to-date

molecular databases.” This refers to the wealth of data that the EBI site offers. The differ­

ence to the NCBI website is that it is easier to download the entire data of the database and

not only to perform individual queries via the web interface.

It is also important that the EMBL database is located here, which provides comparably

detailed sequence information as GenBank at the NIH. However, there are small differ­

ences in the preferences and the offer, but also in the preparation of the entries. In addition,

there is somewhat more and somewhat faster information on new sequences identified in

Europe (NCBI is more detailed and faster for American sequences).

Other important sites can be found at the Swiss Bioinformatics Institute (see next chap­

ter) and at the Japanese gene bank DDBJ (DNA Data Bank of Japan).

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https://www.ddbj.nig.ac.jp

Again, there is a daily comparison with the EMBL and NCBI databases in order to keep

“all known” sequences available. This time, however, this is done from the Japanese point

of view; it is precisely the sequences from Japan that are particularly complete and quickly

recorded here.

Finally, reference should also be made to the new German National Research Data

Infrastructure, in which targeted digitisation and infrastructure is being promoted in

numerous areas.

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https://www.nfdi.de, https://www.nfdi.de/konsortien-­2

For biology, for example, DataPlant (plant databases), the German Human Genome-­

Phenome Archive, NFDI4BioDiversity and NFDI4microbiota. This is also where very

useful data for bioinformatics analysis is concentrated and made available as an infrastruc­

ture for all.

1  Sequence Analysis: Deciphering the Language of Life