SyBIT - the Bioinformatics Project from SystemsX.ch

As part of the Swiss Systems Biology Initiative, SystemsX.ch, the central service of the "SyBIT" project helps the initiative's research projects to cope with their flood of digital data. Because ready-made suitable solutions are not always available to manage such quantities of data.

Scientists are often forced to write customized evaluation programs for data analysis, data management and manage storage media themselves. This means there is a risk that after a possible departure data will simply be lost. Those remaining are left with "black box" evaluations, because the exact function of the data is not known; this may unwittingly lead to errors.

Functions and composition of SyBIT

This is where project SyBIT comes in with its complex array of tasks. The team:

• helps research groups to gather the necessary data and computing infrastructure and, where possible, to plan automatic processes;
• provides standardized software and data management services;
• takes "homegrown" programs and rewrites where necessary or packages them into reusable libraries;
• helps research groups to offer their algorithms to a broad scientific community in easily-manageable configurations;
• manages the Wiki platform, e-mail lists and further Web-based services used by the community;
• provides, together with partner institutes, courses on the use of various software and services.