The italian Bioinformatics and Genomics Unit was established in the 80s, following the birth of the first bio-sequence databases and has been appointed by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MURST) as Italian EMBnet node in 1990. It is presently hosted at the Research Area of the Italian National Research Council in Bari, Italy. Under its Bioinformatics service, it makes available to its user community of academic and private research institutions and universities, bio-sequence databases and software for the functional characterisation of biological sequences. All services can be interactively accessed remotely or using the Internet. Most of the bioinformatics tools (databases and analysis software) accessible through the node are the result of research carried out within the group, namely focussed on design and development of specialised biological databases, development of algorithms for the functional characterisation of biosequences, in silico characterisation of functional motifs, development of mathematical models for functional and evolutionary analysis, molecular taxonomy of genes and genomes, analysis of regulatory regions, molecular diagnostics and biodiversity. The Italian EMBnet node is also very active in training. Bioinformatics courses are organised under request at the premises of the user institutions. At the University of Bari, bioinformatics courses are held within the Degree in Biological Sciences, the PhD in Biochemistry and Genetics and within the Specialisation School in Biotechnological Applications. Italian EMBnet node acts also as tutor for graduation and doctorate theses in bioinformatics.
