Since being founded in March 1998, SIB has now grown into a major organization with far-reaching impact that can be relied on for professional services. For over 25 years, the institute has seen many achievements such as the launch of the [BC]2 conference, the development of a non-invasive prenatal diagnostic test and a notable contribution to the COVID-19 response in Switzerland.
1986
Birth of Swiss-Prot
Amos Bairoch, then a PhD student at the University of Geneva, creates what has since become the world reference resource for protein knowledge, UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot. At that time, the various versions are distributed on magnetic tapes!
1993
Creation of the first life science web portal
To exchange information within the community, Ron Appel launches the first life science server, Expasy, which counts among the 150 first websites in the world. It is accessed 7,295 times even during its first month of existence, and over 2 million times per month a few years later.
1996
A funding crisis leading to SIB's creation in 1998
The Swiss-Prot knowledgebase, which by then has around 100,000 users, is threatened with extinction due to a lack of financial support. Thousands of support messages from the international scientific community flow in. As a result, the Swiss authorities recommend that a stable long-term funding mechanism be sought to ensure the survival of Swiss-Prot and bioinformatics, in the form of a publicly funded foundation.
1998
Creation of the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics
A team of visionary Swiss scientists (Ron Appel, Amos Bairoch, Philipp Bucher, Victor Jongeneel and Manuel Peitsch) unite to create one sole bioinformatics organization. It includes five founding groups from the Universities of Geneva and Lausanne, the Geneva University Hospitals (HUG), the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, the Institut Suisse de Recherche Expérimentale sur le Cancer (ISREC) and Glaxo Wellcome Experimental Research.
2000
Launch of Protein Spotlight
The online popular science magazine, launched by SIB’s Swiss-Prot Group and written by Vivienne Baillie Gerritsen, science writer, tells the tale of one protein each month.
2002
Creation of the UniProt consortium
SIB, the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) and the Georgetown University’s Protein Information Resource (PIR) unite to jointly maintain and develop the most widely used protein information resource in the world, which includes the Swiss-Prot database.
2003
Creation of the first bioinformatics core facility
Launch of the high-performance computing centre Vital-IT by SIB, the Universities of Geneva and Lausanne as well as EPFL, in cooperation with Hewlett-Packard, Intel Corporation and Oracle.
2003
First [BC]2 conference 'Life sciences meet IT'
SIB, the Biozentrum of the University of Basel and the Friedrich Miescher Institute launch the first Basel Computational Biology conference, to foster collaborations between academic, biomedical and pharmaceutical research institutes and to share knowledge, resources and services in the field of computational biology and bioinformatics.
2008
SIB's 10th anniversary
To mark the occasion, SIB produced a film tracing 10 years of Swiss bioinformatics, presenting the institute as well as the latest advances of its service and research groups.
2012
Creation of the Clinical Bioinformatics Group
The group aims at providing health professionals with expertise and support for the organization, analysis and interpretation of patient molecular data, so that they may be used for diagnostic purpose.
2012
A non-invasive prenatal diagnostic test
Vital-IT develops the algorithms behind a test that allows the detection of chromosomal abnormalities in the foetus from the mother’s blood - the test is the first of its kind in Europe.
2013
ChromosomeWalk, the website
A virtual, award-winning online exhibition introducing the human genome and bioinformatics to the public.
2014
Creation of the SIB Training Group
The group integrates and harmonizes existing initiatives, and provides a more comprehensive and complete training portfolio. From this moment on, over 50 courses are organized per year.
2016
Launch of a cancer diagnostic platform
The Geneva University Hospitals (HUG) and SIB develop Oncobench®, a sample-to-report tool used by HUG for faster routine cancer diagnosis.
2017
Launch of the Swiss Personalized Health Network (SPHN) initiative
SIB plays a pivotal role as Data Coordination Centre (DCC) and as the provider of a secure infrastructure for biomedical research in Switzerland (BioMedIT).
2018
20 years of SIB
A year of festivities and projects supported by many sponsors to celebrate 20 years of commitment to life sciences and health.
2020
SIB joining efforts to fight COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic required quick action from all major players around the world, including SIB. Our members were involved in this, by joining efforts to find molecules active against SARS-CoV-2. SIB infrastructure enabled the open sharing of its genomic data through the Swiss Pathogen Surveillance Platform (SPSP). Various open software and tools developed by SIB Members also supported research to fight this and future pandemics.
2021
The SwissBioData ecosystem is proposed
To boost data-driven discoveries in life sciences, this initiative is proposed initially by SIB with 13 Swiss institutions. This vision to enable open research data now brings together 53 units across 18 partners and was awarded the top score in its scientific evaluation. An academic venture of unparalleled scale in Switzerland.
2022
A new leadership
This year saw SIB say farewell to its joint Executive Directors Ron Appel and Christine Durinx, and Christophe Dessimoz appointed as Executive Director.
2022
Three SIB Resources recognized worldwide as critical for life sciences
The first set of Global Core Biodata Resources (GBCRS) are selected with 3 open software and tools developed at SIB being included in this list; Rhea, UniProt and STRING.
2023
25 years of data scientists for life
In 2023, SIB marks 25 years since its launch. Now a major nationwide organization, it can be relied upon for professional services and has had a far-reaching societal impact in the field worldwide.
Find out more on this progress and growth in the SIB Profile 2023
2023
Environmental Bioinformatics is launched
With the worldwide loss of biodiversity becoming an ever-pressing topic, an Environmental Bioinformatics group is launched at the SIB Hub under the direction of Robert Waterhouse.
