Press Release

Free access to world-class biological databases

for European science thanks to FELICS
A unique electronic infrastructure project funded by the European Union is launched
today

Hinxton, 3 May, 2006 – Today the European Molecular
Biology Laboratory’s (EMBL) European Bioinformatics
Institute (EBI), the Swiss Institute for Bioinformatics (SIB), the
University of Cologne, Germany, and the European Patent
Office launch FELICS (Free European Life-science
Information and Computational Services). The new project
coordinated by the EBI will give researchers unrestricted
access to some of the world’s most important biological data-
bases. The Commission of the European Union has awarded
16.7 million Euro under the Research Infrastructures action of
the sixth Framework Programme (FP6) for the project to
develop, enhance and interlink many of the most important
data resources in Europe and widen their accessibility to the
scientific community worldwide. This is the largest ever
European award for computational infrastructures needed to
support biological research.
The EBI is Europe’s largest curator and disseminator of biolog-
ical information, and has played a leading role in ensuring that
information from genomes, for example, is provided to scien-
tists and the public. Its predecessor, the EMBL Data Library,
launched the world’s first universal public database of DNA
sequences in the early 1980s. FELICS encompasses many of
the EBI’s familiar databases, but will also feature some crucial
new activities. Support for BRENDA, the University of
Cologne's enzyme database, will release it from its current
licensing constraints and provide unrestricted access to its
data. FELICS will also offer specific support for the extraction
of information from patent literature in collaboration with the
European Patent Office, who will also collaborate closely on
CheBI, a database of chemical entities of biological interest,
which will receive a substantial boost as part of the project.
"Bioinformatics now pervades biology," says Graham
Cameron, Associate Director of the EBI and coordinator of
FELICS. "Bioinformatics experts no longer sit between biolo-
gist and database. Researchers expect to directly access the
databases and do real work. FELICS gives scientists the elec-
tronic right to roam the biological knowledge space. User-
friendly software, developed within FELICS and other
Commission-funded projects, will facilitate navigation of that
space."
Biomolecular databases are a crucial scientific infrastructure.
The EBI site currently receives around 2 million hits every day,
and even the most conservative estimates suggest a rise to ten
million during the next five years. The need for centralized
public information resources to provide global services for
basic and applied biomolecular and biomedical research can
only increase.
"With other support from the EU and the EMBL Member
States, the EBI coordinates several FP6 networks of excellence
between leading European institutes in bioinformatics and is
involved in many others. These connections will ensure that
the benefits of FELICS spread far beyond the four partners
involved in the project," Cameron says.

Contact:
Cath Brooksbank PhD, EMBL-EBI Scientific Outreach Officer, Hinxton, UK, Tel: +44 1223 492 552, www.ebi.ac.uk, cath@ebi.ac.uk
Anna-Lynn Wegener, EMBL Press Officer, Heidelberg, Germany, Tel: +49 6221 387 452, www.embl.org, wegener@embl.de
About EMBL:
The European Molecular Biology Laboratory is a basic research institute funded by public research monies from 19 member states
(Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal,
Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom). Research at EMBL is conducted by approximately 80 independent groups cover-
ing the spectrum of molecular biology. The Laboratory has five units: the main Laboratory in Heidelberg, and Outstations in Hinxton
(the European Bioinformatics Institute), Grenoble, Hamburg, and Monterotondo near Rome. The cornerstones of EMBL’s mission are:
to perform basic research in molecular biology; to train scientists, students and visitors at all levels; to offer vital services to scientists in
the member states; to develop new instruments and methods in the life sciences and to actively engage in technology transfer activities.
EMBL’s International PhD Programme has a student body of about 170. The Laboratory also sponsors an active Science and Society
programme. Visitors from the press and public are welcome.

About EBI:
The European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) is part of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and is located on the
Wellcome Trust Genome Campus in Hinxton near Cambridge (UK). The EBI grew out of EMBL's pioneering work in providing pub-
lic biological databases to the research community. It hosts some of the world's most important collections of biological data, including
DNA sequences (EMBL-Bank), protein sequences (UniProt), animal genomes (Ensembl), three-dimensional structures (the
Macromolecular Structure Database), data from microarray experiments (ArrayExpress), protein–protein interactions (IntAct) and
pathway information (Reactome). The EBI hosts several research groups and its scientists continually develop new tools for the biocom-
puting community.

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