The Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB, or formally "SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics") is an academic not-for-profit foundation which federates bioinformatics activities throughout Switzerland. The SIB was established on 30 March 1998 and its mission is to provide core bioinformatics resources to the life science research community in fields such as genomics, proteomics and systems biology and to coordinate the field of bioinformatics in Switzerland. In particular, the SIB promotes research, develop databanks and computer technologies, and is involved with teaching and service activities. The SIB is a federation of research groups with affiliated bioinformaticians at the SIB partner institutions: the Universities of Geneva, Lausanne, Basel, Berne and Zurich, the Federal Institutes of Technology in Lausanne and Zurich, the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research. Current research groups in the SIB are located in Geneva, Lausanne, Basel, Bern and Zurich.