Ewan Birney, Rolf Apweiler appointed Joint Directors of EMBL-EBI

March 11, 2015

By Bio-IT World Staff 

March 11, 2015 | Ewan Birney and Rolf Apweiler have been appointed Joint Directors of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory – European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI). They will assume their new roles with effect from 1 July 2015. Professor Dame Janet Thornton steps down after 14 years as the EMBL-EBI director.  

Birney and Apweiler have served as Joint Associate Directors since 2012. In their new posts, they will share responsibility for all aspects of EMBL-EBI, including services, research, training, industry engagement and European coordination. They will also continue to lead their respective research groups. 

In a statement announcing the news, Thornton said, “I am delighted that Ewan and Rolf will be taking over the leadership when I step down as Director this summer. They have been sharing key leadership roles since 2007, and we have all seen how their complementary strengths bring tangible benefit to the organization. Their energy, experience and vision will help us integrate bioinformatics into new translational areas of science. As Joint Directors, they will be uniquely placed to harness the talent of EMBL-EBI’s staff to deliver exceptional outcomes in the life sciences.” 

EMBL-EBI, the European hub for big data in biology, is based on the Wellcome Genome Campus near Cambridge in the UK. As part of EMBL, it has a responsibility to collect, annotate, archive and share data from publicly funded life-science experiments with the global scientific community.  

In the 20 years since its founding, EMBL-EBI has grown very rapidly and now handles many petabytes of data via three separate data centers.  

“EMBL-EBI has done extremely well over the past decade thanks to Janet’s excellent leadership, and her ability to build strong, strategic collaborations that benefit everyone. We will continue this work, and build on it to create closer links with our translational partners, in particular in the clinic,” Birney said in the statement. “This will help bridge the gap between research and practical applications, which is essential for the discovery of new medicines and agricultural improvements. Delivering EMBL-EBI’s public services and ensuring they keep pace with the changing needs of biologists will remain our top priority, and that requires well-developed research and training programs as well as on-going collaborations with industry.” 

Apweiler continued, “Janet Thornton is a hard act to follow, but we are confident that our combined leadership will secure EMBL-EBI’s abilities to handle rapid growth and change over the next decade. Our goal will remain to enable science that benefits society through In a statement announcing the news, Thornton said, “I am delighted that Ewan and Rolf will be taking over the leadership when I step down as Director this summer. They have been sharing key leadership roles since 2007, and we have all seen how their complementary strengths bring tangible benefit to the organization. Their energy, experience and vision will help us integrate bioinformatics into new translational areas of science. As Joint Directors, they will be uniquely placed to harness the talent of EMBL-EBI’s staff to deliver exceptional outcomes in the life sciences.”