The Ensembl project attempts to assemble all the pieces of the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) fragments of human beings and provide a complete picture of the human genome. The complete DNA map of all the chromosomes of an organism is called its genome. Once this genome data is complete, many laboratory experiments that use living organisms can be carried out using computer-based experiments and simulations, drastically reducing the cost and time entailed in research.

The Ensembl project is a joint effort between European Molecular Biology Laboratory-European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) and the Sanger Center. It takes raw data input from public DNA databases, places the data into the Ensembl tracking database, and joins the raw data into a complete genome data. It predicts the location of genes in the genome sequence and predicts possible genes and other features from the completed sequence. Ensembl uses Genscan software, developed by Chris Burge and Samuel Karlin of the Department of Mathematics, Stanford University, to predict and identify genes. In addition, Ensembl uses algorithms, such as BLAST and SSAH, for searching and locating sequences that already exist in the database. The stored data is presented through genome browser, an easy to use interface, which can be downloaded free of charge from www.ensembl.org. Biologists can browse and analyze the genome data using this browser. Ensembl also provides a programming interface for developers to create applications that can interact directly with the Ensembl system.

This ReferencePoint describes the Ensembl...