Welcome to the JCB

The Jena Centre for Bioinformatics (JCB) comprises about 25 research groups and aims to concentrate and strengthen interdisciplinary bioinformatics research.

An important part of the JCB’s activities is the organisation of seminars with invited external speakers and of workshops.

The research groups contributing to the JCB come from different departments of the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology (HKI), the Leibniz Institute for Age Research (FLI), the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, the University of Applied Sciences Jena, and several companies (e.g. BioControl Jena and SIRS-Lab).

Research activities at the JCB cover diverse topics of bioinformatics, joined by the focus on molecular communication processes. Close collaborations between groups using theoretical and experimental approaches characterises the work of the JCB. Main research areas are:

  • Genome analysis and alternative splicing
  • Structural biology
  • Analysis of biological networks; systems biology
  • Databases and online tools
  • Data analysis and evaluation
  • Algorithms for computational biology and bioinformatics
  • Rheumatoid arthritis

The JCB was founded in 2001 as one of six centres forming the “Network of Bioinformatics Competence Centres” funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). After expiration of this support, the JCB still continues its work as a network that aims to concentrate and to strengthen interdisciplinary bioinformatics research, to connect groups that use theoretical and experimental approaches, and to pinpoint applications of bioinformatics and systems biology in different areas, e.g. medicine and biotechnology.