Ewan Birney and Rolf Apweiler have been appointed Joint Directors of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory – European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI). Professor Dame Janet Thornton steps down after 14 years in post. The two men will assume their new roles with effect from 1 July 2015.
Birney and Apweiler have both enjoyed long and distinguished careers at EMBL-EBI, and were appointed Joint Associate Directors in 2012. As Joint Directors, they will share responsibility for all aspects of EMBL-EBI, including services, research, training, industry engagement and European coordination. Birney and Professor Thornton will continue to lead their respective research groups.
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.