VIBE – The All Ireland Bioinformatics Network
The Virtual Institute of Bioinformatics and Evolution
Uniting the bioinformatics community across the island of Ireland.
VIBE is a bottom-up community network representing bioinformatics researchers, data scientists, and computational biologists across Ireland. Since its inception, VIBE has served as the primary forum for networking, collaboration, and the exchange of ideas in the Irish life sciences data domain.
Governance
We operate under a shared set of principles to ensure transparency and community-led decision-making. The VIBE Constitution outlines our purpose, membership structure, and operating procedures.
View the VIBE Constitution on ZenodoStrategic Context: VIBE & ELIXIR
The All-Island Connection
VIBE operates as an All-Island network, bridging the gap between researchers in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. This unique position allows us to foster deep collaboration between:
- ELIXIR Ireland: Covering member institutes in the Republic of Ireland.
- ELIXIR UK: Covering member institutes across the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland.
Why this matters
VIBE provides the established and cohesive All Ireland community that can work in tandem via national ELIXIR Nodes to leverage European scale opportunities, both within and beyond the ELIXIR Europe framework.
Annual Events
VIBE 2025
Date: December 8, 2025
Location: Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
The 2025 edition brought together the bioinformatics community across Ireland for a day of presentations, poster sessions, and networking.
Event websiteVIBE 2024 (Joint VIBE-ICBG Meeting)
Date: December 5–6, 2024
Location: University of Galway
Host: Dr. Pilib Ó Broin (University of Galway)
Keynotes: Karen Miga (UCSC), Davide Cirillo (Barcelona Supercomputing Centre), Elizabeth Bik.
VIBE 2023
Date: May 26, 2023
Location: Riddel Hall, Queen's University Belfast
Host: Dr. Ian Overton (Queen's University Belfast)
Keynotes: Prof. Aedín Culhane (University of Limerick) & Dr. Evangelia Petsalaki (EMBL-EBI).
VIBE 2022
Date: June 24, 2022
Location: University of Limerick
Hosts: Dr. Aedin Culhane & Dr. Virag Sharma
Keynote: Prof. Des Higgins (UCD) - "37 years of Multiple Sequence Alignments"
VIBE 2019
Date: March 22, 2019
Location: UCD Conway Institute, Dublin
Host: Prof. Des Higgins
Keynotes: Prof. Lars Jermiin (UCD) & Dr. Chris Creevey (QUB).
VIBE 2014
Date: May 9, 2014
Location: Dargan Centre, Institute of Technology Carlow
Host: Dr. Andrew Lloyd
Keynote: Dr. Dan Milborne (Teagasc) - "A whistle stop tour of the potato genome sequence".
VIBE 2013
Date: November 15, 2013
Location: NUI Galway (Arts Millennium Building)
Hosts: Dr. Tim Downing & Prof. Cathal Seoighe
Keynote: Prof. John Greally (Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yeshiva University).
VIBE 2008
Date: September 5, 2008
Keynote: Prof. Martin Embley (University of Newcastle, UK) - "Origin and evolution of eukaryotic genomes and organelles".
VIBE 2005 (Biannual Research Day)
Date: February 17, 2005
Location: Dublin City University (DCU)
Host: Mary O'Connell (School of Biotechnology)
Keynote: Prof. John Conery (University of Oregon).
VIBE 2002 (Inaugural Meeting)
Date: April 25–26, 2002
Location: University College Cork (UCC)
Notable Sessions: Genome Evolution (Ken Wolfe), Phylogenies (James McInerney), Multiple Alignments (Des Higgins).
Subscribe to VIBE Mailing List
Stay up to date with job postings, funding calls, and event announcements by joining the community mailing list hosted by HEAnet. This is the primary communication channel for bioinformaticians in Ireland.
To subscribe via email:
Send an email to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.HEANET.IE with the following body:
Principal Investigators & Research Groups
Select an institution above to browse the VIBE community, or click All to view all researchers.
Prof. Aedin Culhane
Professor of Cancer Genomics, Director Limerick Digital Cancer Research Centre
University of Limerick
Prof. Amy Jayne (AJ) McKnight
Professor of Molecular Epidemiology and Public Health; Director of Postgraduate Research
Queens University Belfast
Prof. Andrew Simpkin
Professor in Statistics
University of Galway
Dr. Anthony Redmond
Assistant Professor (Royal Society - Research Ireland University Research Fellow & Ad Astra Fellow)
University College Dublin
Prof. Brendan Loftus
Professor of comparative genomics
University College Dublin
Dr. Daniel Murphy
Lecturer in Bioinformatics
Dublin City University
Prof. Denis Shields
Professor of Clinical Bioinformatics
University College Dublin
Dr. Karsten Hokamp
Assistant Professor in Bioinformatics
Trinity College Dublin
Prof. Orla O'Sullivan
Senior Reseaerch Microbiome data analysis
Teagasc
Prof. Rory Johnson
Associate Professor
University College Dublin
Prof. Roy Sleator
Professor of Bioinformatics
Munster Technological University
Dr. Stafford Vigors
Assistant Professor of Animal Science
University College Dublin
Dr. Therese Murphy
Lecturer in Molecular Diagnostics and Bioinformatics
Technological University Dublin
Are you part of the VIBE community?
If you are a principal investigator or group leader working in bioinformatics, computational biology, or life science data science on the island of Ireland, you can request to be listed in the community directory.
Request to join the directory