23 July, Cambridge – Paul Flicek and Jo McEntyre have been named Associate Directors of EMBL-EBI Services, set to start on 1 August 2019. The two will be responsible for EMBL-EBI’s extensive suite of data resources and related activities, with the appointment set to consolidate the institute’s role as an international research infrastructure for the life sciences.

“We are very pleased to welcome Jo and Paul as Associate Directors,” says Rolf Apweiler, Joint Director of EMBL-EBI. “Their extensive knowledge of the organisation, their links within the life science community and their many achievements throughout the years fully recommend them for the new roles.”

Paul Flicek has been an EMBL Senior Scientist since 2011, the Team Leader for Vertebrate Genomics at EMBL-EBI since 2007 and Head of Genes, Genomes and Variation resources since 2012. His team leads the development of the Ensembl genome annotation resources and analysis infrastructure. Flicek also leads a research group that focuses on the evolution of transcriptional regulation and computational models for genome annotation.

Jo McEntyre, who was recently made an EMBL Senior Scientist, has been the Team Leader for Literature Services since 2009. Her team maintains Europe PMC, the database of abstracts and full-text articles for the life sciences. Prior to joining EMBL-EBI, Jo was a staff scientist at the NCBI, and previously was the Editor at Trends in Biochemical Sciences published by Elsevier.

“I’m looking forward to using my experience at EMBL-EBI and my links to the wider genomics community to support the continuous improvement of EMBL-EBI’s data resources,” says Flicek. “We have seen our user base grow significantly in the last few years, so it’s important to continuously adapt our data resources and tools based on this increasing demand.”

“EMBL-EBI plays an essential role in making scientific data available to researchers from all over the world,” explains McEntyre. “From carefully curated data resources, to high-throughput experimental data, all have their role to play in life sciences research. Linking the data with publications is fundamental for improving the quality of research, and I hope that with time the value of data is increasingly recognised alongside publications. Sharing reusable data through sustainable, community data resources like the ones managed by EMBL-EBI is crucial to achieving this.”

Edith Heard, the EMBL Director General, warmly congratulates Paul Flicek and Jo McEntyre and looks forward to working with them in their new roles.

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