The Spanish National Bioinformatics Institute (‘Instituto Nacional de Bioinformática’ in Spanish, or short INB), founded in 2003 following the decentralized model of nodes of the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB), is the bioinformatics technology platform of the Carlos III Health Institute (‘Instituto de Salud Carlos III‘ or ISCIII) since January 2018. The INB has increased the participant nodes to 19 research groups distributed across 13 institutions in Spain.

The two main overarching objectives are maintaining and increasing the alignment of the INB with ELIXIR (European Life Science Infrastructure for Biological Information) looking for deeper synergies, while increasing the translational capacity of the INB towards the Spanish National Health System (SNS).

The INB serves in the coordination, integration and development of Spanish bioinformatics resources in projects in the areas of genomics, proteomics and translational medicine. It has contributed to the creation of a consistent computational infrastructure in the area of bioinformatics, participated in national and international genome projects, and trained bioinformatics users and developers.

The INB is in a strategic position as an interface between developments at the national and international level by research centers, initiatives such as the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH), and organizations such as ELIXIR, and bioinformatic groups directly related to clinical practice. Spain is member of ELIXIR since 2015, with the INB as the Spanish national node. Within ELIXIR, the INB is responsible for the bioinformatics infrastructure offered by Spain, and therefore, should guarantee its alignment to the strategic areas put forward by ELIXIR.