South African National Bioinformatics Institute

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The South African National Bioinformatics Institute (SANBI) is a non-profit organisation dedicated to research into improving health using Bioinformatics and Genomics.

Founded in 1996 and part of the faculty of Natural Sciences of the University of the Western Cape[1], SANBI is a world-recognised institute that utilises and develops skills in information technology, genomics and biotechnology required to understand genomes. SANBI is directed by Professor Winston Hide, and is known as a prolific institution in Africa in the field of Bioinformatics, responsible for the founding of the SA National Bioinformatics Network, the African Society for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology and is the regional site for the WHO African centre for training in pathogen bioinformatics. SANBI is the European Molecular Biology Network national node and is an affiliate of the Ludwig Cancer Research Institute. SANBI’s research team is made up of a number of faculty researching into genetic diversity, gene regulation, cancer, sleeping sickness and HIV.

SANBI is funded by several organisations including the SA Medical Research Council, the SA National Bioinformatics Network, the SA National Research Foundation, the Claude Leon Foundation, the US National Institutes of Health, the Fogharty Foundation and the European Commission.

SANBI has current collaborations with institutes and laboratories at Harvard University[2] (USA), Oxford University[3] (UK),Cambridge[4] (UK), Stanford University[5] (USA), Pasteur Institute (FR, TN), the RIKEN institute (JP), the Allen Institute for Brain Science (USA), INSERM (FR), the European Bioinformatics Institute (UK), and the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research(AUS, USA, CH, BR).