doi.bio/amos_bairoch
Amos Bairoch
Early Life and Education
Amos Bairoch (born 22 November 1957) is a Swiss bioinformatician and Professor of Bioinformatics at the Department of Human Protein Sciences of the University of Geneva. He is the son of economic historian Paul Bairoch.
Career
Bairoch's first project as a PhD student was the development of PC/Gene, an MS-DOS-based software package for the analysis of protein and nucleotide sequences. PC/Gene was commercialized, first by a Swiss company (Genofit), then by Intelligenetics in the US, which was later bought by Oxford Molecular.
His main area of research is protein sequence analysis, particularly the development of databases and software tools for this purpose. His most important contribution is the input of human knowledge by careful manual annotation in protein-related data.
While working on PC/Gene, he started to develop an annotated protein sequence database, which became Swiss-Prot and was first released in July 1986. From 1988 onwards, it became a collaborative project with the Data Library group of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, which later evolved into the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI).
The Swiss-Prot database is the primary protein sequence resource in the world and has been a key research instrument for bioinformaticians and laboratory-based scientists. In recognition of its success, UniProt was developed—it is the world's most comprehensive catalogue of information on proteins.
In 1988, Bairoch started to develop PROSITE, a database of protein families and domains. He also created ENZYME, a nomenclature database on enzymes, and SeqAnalRef, a sequence analysis bibliographic reference database.
In collaboration with Ron Appel, he initiated the first molecular biology WWW server, ExPASy, in August 1993. ExPASy grew rapidly into a major site, providing access to many databases and tools for the analysis of proteins (proteomics).
In 1998, Bairoch was one of the founders of the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, with a mission to establish a centre of excellence in bioinformatics in Switzerland.
In November 1997, Bairoch, along with Ron Appel and Denis Hochstrasser, founded GeneBio (Geneva Bioinformatics SA), a company involved in biological knowledge. In April 2000, they, along with Keith Rose and Robin Offord, founded GeneProt (Geneva Proteomics), a high-throughput proteomics company that ceased operations in 2005.
Since 2009, Bairoch has been involved in the development of neXtProt, a resource that aims to provide life scientists with a broad spectrum of knowledge on all human proteins. He is also involved with the Cellosaurus, a knowledge resource on cell lines.
Awards and Honours
- 1993: Friedrich Miescher Award from the Swiss Society of Biochemistry
- 1995: Helmut Horten Foundation Incentive Award
- 2004: Pehr Edman award
- 2004: European Latsis Prize
- 2010: Otto Naegeli prize
- 2011: HUPO Distinguished Achievement Award in Proteomic Sciences
- 2013: EUPA proteomics pioneer award
- 2018: ABRF Award
Publications
Bairoch has contributed to over 200 publications, with his most highly cited papers appearing in Nucleic Acids Research, the Biochemical Journal, Nature, Briefings in Bioinformatics, and Database. Notable publications include:
- "Gapped BLAST and PSI-BLAST: a new generation of protein database search programs" (1997)
- "Clustal w: improving the sensitivity of progressive multiple sequence alignment through sequence weighting, position-specific gap penalties and weight matrix choice" (1994)
- "The Universal Protein Resource (UniProt)" (2004)
- "The SWISS-PROT protein knowledgebase and its supplement TrEMBL in 2003" (2003)
- "ExPASy: The proteomics server for in-depth protein knowledge and analysis" (2003)
Amos Bairoch
Early Life and Education
Amos Bairoch (born 22 November 1957) is a Swiss bioinformatician and Professor of Bioinformatics at the Department of Human Protein Sciences of the University of Geneva. He is the son of economic historian Paul Bairoch.
Career
Bairoch is currently a group leader at the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB) and does research in biocuration. He is also the director of the Department of Human Protein Science at the University of Geneva and head of the CALIPHO group of the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics.
His main work is in the field of protein sequence analysis and the development of databases and software tools for this purpose. His most important contribution is the input of human knowledge by careful manual annotation in protein-related data.
Bairoch's first project as a PhD student was the development of PC/Gene, an MS-DOS–based software package for the analysis of protein and nucleotide sequences. PC/Gene was commercialized, first by a Swiss company (Genofit) then by Intelligenetics in the US, which was later bought by Oxford Molecular.
While working on PC/Gene, he started to develop an annotated protein sequence database, which became Swiss-Prot and was first released in July 1986. From 1988 onwards, it has been a collaborative project with the Data Library group of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, which later evolved into the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI).
In 1988, he started to develop PROSITE, a database of protein families and domains. He also created ENZYME, a nomenclature database on enzymes, as well as SeqAnalRef, a sequence analysis bibliographic reference database.
In collaboration with Ron Appel, he initiated the first molecular biology WWW server, ExPASy, in August 1993.
In 1998, Bairoch was one of the founders of the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, with a mission to establish a centre of excellence in the field of bioinformatics.
In November 1997, Bairoch co-founded GeneBio (Geneva Bioinformatics SA), a company involved in biological knowledge. In April 2000, he co-founded GeneProt (Geneva Proteomics), a high-throughput proteomics company that ceased operations in 2005.
Since 2009, Bairoch has been involved in the development of neXtProt, a resource that aims to provide life scientists with a broad spectrum of knowledge on all human proteins. He is also involved in the development of the Cellosaurus, a knowledge resource on cell lines.
Awards and Honours
Bairoch has been the recipient of numerous awards, including:
- The 1993 Friedrich Miescher Award from the Swiss Society of Biochemistry
- The 1995 Helmut Horten Foundation Incentive Award
- The 2004 Pehr Edman award
- The 2004 European Latsis Prize
- The 2010 Otto Naegeli prize
- The 2011 HUPO Distinguished Achievement Award in Proteomic Sciences
- The 2013 EUPA proteomics pioneer award
- The 2018 ABRF Award
Selected Bibliography
- UniProt: the Universal Protein knowledgebase (2004)
- ExPASy: The proteomics server for in-depth protein knowledge and analysis (2003)
- The Universal Protein Resource (UniProt) (2004)
- The SWISS-PROT protein knowledgebase and its supplement TrEMBL in 2003 (2003)
- Gapped BLAST and PSI-BLAST: a new generation of protein database search programs (1997)
- Clustal w: improving the sensitivity of progressive multiple sequence alignment through sequence weighting, position-specific gap penalties and weight matrix choice (1994)
Youtube Videos
Youtube Title: Amos Bairoch - Cell lines in the 21st century symposium
Youtube Link: link
Youtube Channel Name: SIB - Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics
Youtube Channel Link: https://www.youtube.com/@sib-swissinstituteofbioinf4579
Amos Bairoch - Cell lines in the 21st century symposium
Youtube Title: Amos Bairoch: Cell lines: bioinformatics, contaminations and human interest stories
Youtube Link: link
Youtube Channel Name: SIB - Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics
Youtube Channel Link: https://www.youtube.com/@sib-swissinstituteofbioinf4579
Amos Bairoch: Cell lines: bioinformatics, contaminations and human interest stories
Youtube Title: Cellosaurus, Dr. Amos Bairoch
Youtube Link: link
Youtube Channel Name: Neuroscience Information Framework
Youtube Channel Link: https://www.youtube.com/@neuroscienceinformationfra7815
Cellosaurus, Dr. Amos Bairoch
Youtube Title: Keynote: neXtProt 2015 highlights: SPARQL endpoint and… - Amos Bairoch – Keynotes - ISMB/ECCB 2015
Youtube Link: link
Youtube Channel Name: ISCB
Youtube Channel Link: https://www.youtube.com/@ISCBtv
Keynote: neXtProt 2015 highlights: SPARQL endpoint and... - Amos Bairoch – Keynotes - ISMB/ECCB 2015
Youtube Title: A guided tour through Cellosaurus
Youtube Link: link
Youtube Channel Name: SIB - Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics
Youtube Channel Link: https://www.youtube.com/@sib-swissinstituteofbioinf4579
A guided tour through Cellosaurus
Youtube Title: Why should you use Cellosaurus, the cell line encyclopedia?
Youtube Link: link
Youtube Channel Name: SIB - Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics
Youtube Channel Link: https://www.youtube.com/@sib-swissinstituteofbioinf4579
Why should you use Cellosaurus, the cell line encyclopedia?
Youtube Title: Biocuration2021 Virtual Conference - Session 4
Youtube Link: link
Youtube Channel Name: International Society for Biocuration
Youtube Channel Link: https://www.youtube.com/@biocurator
Biocuration2021 Virtual Conference - Session 4
Youtube Title: Florian M. Wurm - Cell lines in the 21st century symposium
Youtube Link: link
Youtube Channel Name: SIB - Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics
Youtube Channel Link: https://www.youtube.com/@sib-swissinstituteofbioinf4579
Florian M. Wurm - Cell lines in the 21st century symposium
Youtube Title: Swiss-Prot 20: Closing remarks
Youtube Link: link
Youtube Channel Name: Eric Jain
Youtube Channel Link: https://www.youtube.com/@ejain
Swiss-Prot 20: Closing remarks
Youtube Title: Andreas Kurtz - Cell lines in the 21st century symposium
Youtube Link: link
Youtube Channel Name: SIB - Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics
Youtube Channel Link: https://www.youtube.com/@sib-swissinstituteofbioinf4579
Andreas Kurtz - Cell lines in the 21st century symposium
Youtube Title: Jan van der Valk - Cell lines in the 21st century symposium
Youtube Link: link
Youtube Channel Name: SIB - Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics
Youtube Channel Link: https://www.youtube.com/@sib-swissinstituteofbioinf4579
Jan van der Valk - Cell lines in the 21st century symposium
Youtube Title: Niels C. Bols - Cell lines in the 21st century symposium
Youtube Link: link
Youtube Channel Name: SIB - Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics
Youtube Channel Link: https://www.youtube.com/@sib-swissinstituteofbioinf4579
Niels C. Bols - Cell lines in the 21st century symposium
Youtube Title: Tadashi Kondo - Cell lines in the 21st century symposium
Youtube Link: link
Youtube Channel Name: SIB - Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics
Youtube Channel Link: https://www.youtube.com/@sib-swissinstituteofbioinf4579
Tadashi Kondo - Cell lines in the 21st century symposium
Youtube Title: neXtProt demo.f4v
Youtube Link: link
Youtube Channel Name: cathcnoyes
Youtube Channel Link: https://www.youtube.com/@cathcnoyes
neXtProt demo.f4v
Youtube Title: Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose… the next 20 years (Slides)
Youtube Link: link
Youtube Channel Name: Eric Jain
Youtube Channel Link: https://www.youtube.com/@ejain
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose... the next 20 years (Slides)