At SIB, the year pulses to the rhythm of a multitude of projects we are leading or involved in. With many new partnerships established and competitive funding secured, 2024 has been a remarkable year for the institute. These achievements help to keep Switzerland at the forefront of life science research and innovation. Here are some highlights, from fending off pathogens to preserving biodiversity.
Driving global pathogen research and pandemic preparedness
- Launch of the Centre for Pathogen Bioinformatics to serve both the Swiss federal authorities and the global research community. Its mission is to keep Switzerland at the cutting edge of pathogen bioinformatics research, and to strengthen global preparedness and pandemic response.
- SIB secured NIH funding to co-lead a global pathogen data network with EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute. This initiative aims to improve pathogen detection and response globally.
- The scope of the mission of the Swiss Pathogen Surveillance Platform (SPSP), co-led by SIB, was expanded to include new pathogens beyond SARS-CoV-2, both for Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) and the Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office (FSVO).
Empowering personalized health and human genomics research
- The Swiss Personalized Health Network (SPHN) continues under a proposed CHF 20 million funding plan for 2025–2028. SIB remains pivotal in advancing data sharing for health research.
- Under the coordination of SIB, the foundation of the first Swiss archive for human genomics data is launched by a consortium of Swiss institutions, ensuring secure data sharing and research innovation.
Conserving biodiversity through genomics
SIB actively supports efforts to assemble reference genomes for the 18 million described species on Earth (Earth BioGenome Project) and co-leads the European Reference Genome Atlas project to map biodiversity across the continent. These projects are key to conserving species and understanding ecosystems.
Enhancing research software management across Europe
SIB is participating in ELIXIR-STEERS, a three-year EU funded project. Its goals are to enhance large-scale, cross-border federated analysis in the life sciences across the European Research Area, through improved research productivity and energy usage, among other aspects.
Getting further involved into ELIXIR’s activities
SIB has intensified its engagement into ELIXIR’s activities and network:
- Participation in all 5 platforms (Data, Tools, Compute, Interoperability, Training).
- Co-leading 4 communities - 3D-Bioinfo, Biodiversity, Food and Nutrition and Human Copy Number Variation - and 2 Focus Groups - FAIR training and Pathogen Data.
- Participating in 6 new competitive grants launched by ELIXIR and beginning in January 2025.
Further SIB Resources, namely SWISS-MODEL and ModelArchive recognized as crucial to the life science community on the European level.
Organizing the next European Computational Biology Conference
SIB’s application to organize the 2026 edition of the European Conference on Computational Biology (ECCB) in Geneva was selected among five other proposals.
This conference, to be held from 31 August to 4 September 2026, will contribute to position Switzerland as a hub for science and innovation in the field.
For a full view of SIB's 2024 milestones and projects, visit our news section.
