Ensembl Genome Browser

The Ensembl project creates evidence-based annotation of genome sequences and integrates these data with other biological information. All of Ensembl's results are freely available to geneticists, molecular biologists, bioinformaticians and the wider research community. Ensembl is a joint project between EMBL-EBI and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.

Ensembl was established in 1999, towards the end of the Human Genome Project, in response to a recognition that understanding the genetic code of organisms is as important as reading it. However, purely manual curation of all genome sequences is an unthinkable task, given the labour-intensive and time-consuming nature of such work. To overcome this problem, the Ensembl project team developed new software pipelines to automatically generate evidence-based annotation of genome sequences.

Since its inception, the Ensembl project has expanded from the curation of the human genome to embrace more than 80 vertebrate species. These include many model organisms central to the study of human diseases. Ensembl has participated in many genome consortia, producing annotation used in the initial genomic analyses of newly sequenced organisms.

The project provides an expanding wealth of information for a diverse list of species, including:

Intron and exon structure for protein-coding and non-coding genes

Genomic variations and somatic mutations and their consequences on genes and genotypes in populations and individuals

Cross-species gene trees and whole genome alignments

Functional genomic data - including regulatory region annotation.

Ensembl website

To provide the data in the most useful format for researchers, Ensembl provides several means of access including the Ensembl website, which is the public face of the project. It is highly customisable, interactive and presents a track-based genome browser location view as the major entry point. Many additional displays supply specialised and highly integrated views of genomic annotation.

Rapid and open data access

Free and unrestricted access to the information held in Ensembl is one of the foundational principles of the project and supports our vision to enable genomic science and promote rapid research into all areas of human and animal disease.

All Ensembl code is open source.

Downloads

The Ensembl website can be found here: http://www.ensembl.org

Further information

Help and documentation is available here.

Legal information can be found here.

Contact

If you need help or have any queries, please contact us using the details below.

You can email the Ensembl helpdesk with any queries.