Computational Metagenomics (IBG-5)
More than 99% of naturally occurring microbial species cannot be cultivated and are therefore inaccessible for classical genome studies. Metagenomics and single-cell genomics are two approaches to study the "microbial dark matter".
Metagenomics is the direct analysis of the entire genetic material (DNA). This method makes it possible to characterize the diversity of microbial communities, investigate their interactions and make well-founded functional predictions about the role of individual microorganisms or microbial groups.
Our research group, led by Prof. Dr. Alexander Sczyrba, develops bioinformatics tools and pipelines for the analysis of metagenomes. Since the size of the data sets is growing extremely rapidly, a particular focus of our research is on the use of cloud computing technologies. The aim is to dynamically scale the computing resources to carry out the analyses efficiently.

Network
The IBG-5 at Forschungszentrum Jülich coordinates the German Network for Bioinformatics Infrastructure (de.NBI) and ELIXIR Germany, which is the German node of the European ELIXIR infrastructure. Working closely with partner institutes, it provides the life sciences and biomedical research community with state-of-the-art software tools, scalable cloud resources and specialised training.
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