UniProt, the Universal Protein Resource, is a collaboration between the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB), and the Protein Information Resource (PIR). Across the three institutes, more than 100 people are involved in different tasks such as database curation, software development, and support. Main funding by: National Institutes of Health (NIH) and European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL).
EMBL-EBI and SIB together used to produce Swiss-Prot and TrEMBL, while PIR produced the Protein Sequence Database (PIR-PSD). These two data sets coexisted with different protein sequence coverage and annotation priorities. TrEMBL (Translated EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Data Library) was originally created because sequence data was being generated at a pace that exceeded Swiss-Prot’s ability to keep up. Meanwhile, PIR maintained the PIR-PSD and related databases, including iProClass, a database of protein sequences and curated families. In 2002 the three institutes decided to pool their resources and expertise and formed the UniProt consortium.