Hinxton, September 12, 2005 The European Commission has selected the EBI to coordinate a project that will stimulate and explore synergies between bioinformatics (the science of storing, retrieving and analysing large amounts of biological information) and medical informatics (the science of processing, sharing and using large amounts of medical information). The SYMBiomatics project will culminate in a White Paper that will inform the Commission's funding policy on the synergy between these two rapidly growing areas. The aim is to facilitate and accelerate biomedical research and innovation, with the ultimate goal of improving Europe's efficiency at developing better tools and systems for disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment.

Building on decades of advances in deciphering the molecular components of living things, molecular and computational biologists are now synthesising the information that they've gathered, and are building a detailed understanding of cells, tissues, organs, organisms and populations. At the same time, clinical research has led to a better appreciation of the molecular basis of disease. Clinical scientists are amassing information that is helping them to decipher how variations in people's genetic make-up can affect their likelihood of developing certain diseases such as cardiovascular disease or diabetes, or of developing an adverse response to particular drugs, such as the anti-coagulants used to treat some types of heart disease.

"The emerging discipline of biomedical informatics sits at the interface of the previously disparate worlds of bioinformatics and medical informatics," says Graham Cameron, the EBI's Associate Director and coordinator of the SYMBiomatics project. "The development of technologies that will allow scientific and clinical information to be shared and integrated more readily will expedite the creation of novel diagnostic, preventive and therapeutic methods, allowing people to lead longer, health
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Contact: Sarah Sherwood
sherwood@embl.de
49-6221-387-125
European Molecular Biology Laboratory
12-Sep-2005

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