Ensembl genome browser

The Ensembl genome project, primarily funded by the Wellcome Trust, provides free access to genome sequence data and analysis tools via a web browser. It is used by thousands of researchers worldwide and receives almost one million visitors each week.

The Ensembl genome browser provides access to sequence data from 12 organisms, including the human genome sequence and data from all the most important, commonly used experimental organisms. It shows the location of genes, variations and other sequence features within genomes, and allows comparisons to be made between organisms.

All Ensembl data and software are freely available for use by academic and commercial biomedical researchers worldwide. Up to 30 local installations have been made around the world in academic and commercial research institutions.

The Wellcome Trust has invested more than £20 million to establish Ensembl. The service is being developed jointly by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the European Bioinformatics Institute (an outstation of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory), both of which are based on the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus.

As a freely available software system for genomic analysis, Ensembl has been designed as an open source project, and any researchers, commercial or academic, are welcome to join as developers.

Just as important, Ensembl can be customised and remote users can 'post' their data to be viewed by others. Ensembl thus acts as a shared 'community resource', improving our understanding of genomes and accelerating efforts to understand disease.