Distinguished Lecture Series: Jo McEntyre and "Life Science Open Data Resources at the European Bioinformatics Institute"

Life Science Open Data Resources at the European Bioinformatics Institute

Jo McEntyre

The mission of the EMBL-EBI data services is to deliver global data resources that meet the needs of cutting edge life sciences and medical research, and to do so in the most cost-effective, integrated, and sustainable way possible. Molecular and related data are provided to the world from just over 40 data resources, covering genomes to chemicals to curated cellular pathways and the research literature. These resources are used everyday in the design and interpretation of experiments, from supporting new analyses that push forward the boundaries of understanding, to routine use in clinical genomics workflows worldwide, and finally in enabling transformative computational approaches, such as DeepMind’s AlphaFold. In this presentation I will describe how this portfolio of resources is managed, highlighting some key recent developments, challenges, and future opportunities. I look forward to discussing with you the application of these life sciences data resources in multidisciplinary contexts.

McEntyre was appointed Senior Scientist and Associate Director of EMBL-EBI Services in 2019 with responsibility for data resources. She has been Team Leader for Literature Services at EMBL-EBI since 2009. Her team runs Europe PMC - the open access database of abstracts and full-text articles for the life sciences, which supports the open access policies of 29 international funders of life sciences research.