Swiss bioinformatics excellence strengthens EU research, from cancer data platforms to genomic tools for biodiversity and conservation.
The Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB) is a Swiss research infrastructure and a leading organisation in biological and biomedical data science, which contributes to maintain Switzerland at the heart of global scientific endeavour. As part of its mandate from the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI), it brings expertise, services and high-quality data to partners and projects, enabling innovation across disciplines.
As Europe’s largest national bioinformatics community, SIB represents Switzerland on the international scene, including in European research projects. At the heart of its contribution is its expertise in data quality. Reliable, representative, and interoperable data are the foundation of discovery and innovation. SIB’s role includes ensuring that complex datasets can be shared and reused safely and efficiently, developing solutions to answer complex biological questions and accelerate scientific progress, and promoting the adoption of FAIR data principles. The Swiss excellence that SIB brings thus strengthens national and international cooperation, maximises the impact of public and private investment, and keeps Switzerland connected to global scientific efforts.
This collaborative approach comes to life in a number of European initiatives addressing major public health and environmental challenges. Two examples of such projects are UNCAN-Connect, which focuses on cancer research, and Biodiversity Genomics Europe (BGE), which supports biodiversity monitoring.
Swiss contribution to cancer research: UNCAN-Connect
One example of SIB’s contribution to EU projects in the health area is the new Horizon Europe project UNCAN-Connect, an initiative that aims to facilitate seamless access to cancer data, promote open science, and revolutionise cancer research and treatment by co-developing an open-source platform “UNCAN.eu”. Funded under Horizon Europe and by Switzerland, the project brings together 53 organisations from 19 countries to build a decentralised collaborative network for cancer research and innovation.
At the core of the project lies the development of an open-source digital platform that will give researchers secure access to harmonised cancer-related health data. By connecting data across institutions and countries, the platform will make it possible to study major cancer types, including paediatric, pancreatic and ovarian cancers, and accelerate the discovery of new therapeutic approaches.
SIB is leading work to ensure data within this federated platform are interoperable and high-quality, including through the development of new AI tools for data harmonisation. Through UNCAN-Connect, Swiss excellence in bioinformatics directly contributes to a European mission of improving cancer outcomes for all. The project exemplifies how collaboration between Switzerland and the EU can drive innovation, support the European Health Data Space and align with Switzerland’s Health2030 strategy by fostering open science and trusted research infrastructures.
Swiss expertise for biodiversity: Biodiversity Genomics Europe (BGE)
Another example of SIB’s active role in European collaborations is Biodiversity Genomics Europe (BGE), a Horizon Europe project that applies genomic science to biodiversity research and conservation. Launched in 2022, BGE brings together 33 partner institutions from 20 countries and unites two major European networks, iBOL Europe and the European Reference Genome Atlas (ERGA), which together involve more than 200 organisations. Running until 2026, the project aims to accelerate the use of genomic science to understand, monitor and protect Europe’s biodiversity. It also feeds into a global initiative, the Earth BioGenome Project (EBP), aiming to sequence life on Earth.
Robert Waterhouse, Director of SIB’s Environmental Bioinformatics group, leads Biodiversity Genomics Europe’s joint activities that connect expertise from the DNA barcoding and genomics communities. His group develops data science solutions that address global environmental challenges and support planetary preservation. As Waterhouse explains: “BGE brings together people who do not usually talk to each other, from taxonomists to sequencing specialists, or from field ecologists to genomics researchers and bioinformaticians. By connecting major genomic approaches, we are recognising the value of working together where we have strong synergies, for example, by developing protocols that ensure species sampling can collect material to be used for both barcoding and reference genome generation.”
Through its participation in BGE, ERGA and EBP, SIB contributes essential expertise in coordinating biodata resources and developing interoperable tools and services. This collaboration strengthens Switzerland’s visibility in European and global biodiversity research and demonstrates how shared data infrastructures can guide effective action to protect and restore the natural environment. For the EU, this collaboration is also a major advantage, as it brings Swiss know-how in bioinformatics and data management into European biodiversity work, helping the EU produce better data for research and policy.
To tackle the global biodiversity crisis, there is a need of a much deeper understanding of life on Earth. Scientists have yet to describe around 80 percent of multicellular species, and even for known species, information on their variation, distribution and conservation status remains incomplete. By combining DNA barcoding with full-genome sequencing, BGE is transforming how researchers study and preserve biodiversity. The project strengthens Europe’s capacity to generate genomic data at scale, ensure better data sharing among researchers, and support evidence-based conservation policies.