National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI)

The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) is an American biotechnology research facility that is part of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the US federal government's National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NCBI's primary focus is biomedicine, which is an application of biotechnology. It allows scientists to engineer the elements of live organisms to create products that ultimately aid human beings, such as new medicines.

Since its founding in 1988, the NCBI has researched molecular biology and genetics, compiled its findings in online databases, and attempted to use this information to advance humanity's understanding of human health and disease. The NCBI also actively helps to educate the American and international scientific communities through lectures, workshops, meetings, and research programs in computational biology and database usage.

Background

Plans for the founding of the NCBI began around 1984. At this time, multiple scientific advocacy groups began meeting with members of the US Congress in Washington to insist that the federal government fund research in molecular biology for the advancement of medical technology. These meetings took place over the next two years. The scientists and other molecular biology advocates envisioned a biotechnology research center that would be part of the NLM.

The NLM is part of the NIH, headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland. As the largest biomedical library in the world, the NLM provides on-site and online medical research data to millions of people around the world every year. The library owns about twenty-two million books, journals, and other kinds of biomedical publications. It publishes its information in online databases for the use of scientists, physicians, and the general global public. The NLM also actively researches new ways to communicate and manage biomedical information.

By 1986, the newly formed nonprofit organization the Friends of the National Library of Medicine, in concert with the NLM itself, planned to recommend that Congress create a division of the NLM for molecular biological research. The research center would hold and disseminate the NLM's collection of biotechnological research. The center would also develop advanced computer systems for storing and communicating the information.

The biotechnology advocates approached US congressman Claude Pepper of Florida with their plans for the biotechnology center. Pepper supported the idea of the NLM collecting and computerizing all its information on biotechnology. He requested that the NLM compose a document explaining to Congress why the US government should fund biotechnology. The document became part of the biotechnology center bill that Pepper introduced in Congress toward the end of one of its sessions. Congress did not even consider the bill.

In 1987, Pepper again brought a bill creating the NCBI before Congress. During his presentation, he claimed such a center would attempt to discover the intricacies of human life with its biomedical research. Patients helped by biotechnology also appeared in Congress to testify about their experiences.

Pepper again struggled to have the bill passed. In 1988, he collaborated with various other legislators to add the NCBI bill to a larger public health bill called the Health Omnibus Programs Extension (HOPE) Act. Congress eventually approved this bill, and President Ronald Reagan signed it into law on November 4, 1988. The law formally created the NCBI.

Overview

As a division of the NLM, the NCBI is located on the sprawling campus of the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland. The overall NIH researches numerous fields of medical science ultimately to make discoveries that will benefit human health by preventing disease.

Biotechnology, the specific focus of the NCBI, involves scientists engineering living things or their parts for use as, generally, agricultural or medical products. In both of these branches, scientists genetically design new organisms, discover new genes, and genetically modify organisms for experimentation.

Medical biotechnology, particularly the area of new drug creations, is the most heavily government-funded type of biotechnology in the United States. Designing new pharmaceuticals that can treat diseases begins with finding and naming the distinct genes or other proteins in the human body that medical science has most commonly linked to the development of certain illnesses.

Scientists who identify a potential target gene then apply thousands of chemicals individually to the gene and record the effects. This testing shows scientists how the human body would react if these chemicals were included in new medicines. Chemicals that appear to work well with the genes in these early tests are inspected further for their possible side effects and then tested on human subjects in clinical trials. Drugs that pass all these tests are manufactured as commercial products.

The NCBI has two predominant focus areas: biotechnological research, and the collection, organization, and communication of that information. Scientists at the center actively study gene molecules to advance the international scientific community's general knowledge of biomedical information. The NCBI shares its discoveries with biotechnology industries, researchers, and other NIH facilities.

Organizing and displaying the information in its databases for the public to see is the other chief concern of the NCBI. The center designs its own automated software technologies that allow the national and international medical community, as well as the public, to access and learn from its databases. In the twenty-first century, the NCBI maintains more than forty interrelated databases on biotechnology. Several million people visit the NCBI website every day, downloading thousands of gigabytes of data.

Computer technology is important to the NCBI in other ways, particularly in the field of computational biology. This branch of biotechnology allows scientists to inspect microscopic materials such as genetic sequences, create biological models based on mathematics, and generate graphic simulations.

In keeping with its overall mission to educate the public in biotechnology, the NCBI also supports a number of scientific workshops, meetings, and lecture series. Through its scientific visitors program, the center trains scientists from around the world in informatics, or computer-based information processing. Finally, the NCBI disseminates its methods of storing and sharing database information so other such facilities can maintain their scientific collections in the same ways.

Bibliography

"About NLM and FNLM." Friends of the National Library of Medicine, www.fnlm.org/aboutus.php. Accessed 19 Dec. 2017.

"Computational Biology and Bioinformatics." Nature, www.nature.com/subjects/computational-biology-and-bioinformatics. Accessed 19 Dec. 2017.

Diehl, Paul. "What Is Biotechnology and How Did It Make the Biotech Industry?" The Balance, 26 June 2017, www.thebalance.com/what-is-biotechnology-375612. Accessed 19 Dec. 2017.

"Mission and Goals." National Institutes of Health, www.nih.gov/about-nih/what-we-do/mission-goals. Accessed 19 Dec. 2017.

"National Center for Biotechnology Information Celebrates 25th Anniversary." US National Library of Medicine, 5 Nov. 2013, www.nlm.nih.gov/news/ncbi‗twentyfifth‗anniversary.html. Accessed 19 Dec. 2017.

"National Library of Medicine (NLM): Mission." National Institutes of Health, www.nih.gov/about-nih/what-we-do/nih-almanac/national-library-medicine-nlm. Accessed 19 Dec. 2017.

"Our Mission." National Center for Biotechnology Information, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/home/about/mission/. Accessed 19 Dec. 2017.

Smith, Kent. "A Brief History of NCBI's Formation and Growth." National Center for Biotechnology Information, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK148949/. Accessed 19 Dec. 2017.