In the next release of Ensembl (Ensembl 96) we will remove our ontology database patching scripts from the main Ensembl repository.

There is now a dedicated module using the EBI OLS service to load Ensembl required ontologies. Considering this module is now in charge of loading the required data, the previous databases patches have been moved to the ols-ensembl-loader repository.

If you need to update your system with future patches, please now refer to the ols-ensembl-loader repository sql directory where files are already available.

Please contact the Ensembl Helpdesk if you have any questions or want to find out more about how this might affect your work.

Due to a major loss of cooling incident at one of the EMBL-EBI data centres, there was reduced Ensembl functionality between Saturday 2nd February and Wednesday 6th February.

However, as of Wednesday 6th February, all Ensembl and Ensembl Genomes services have now been restored and are working as normal.

If you encounter any further issues, please report them to the Ensembl Helpdesk.

Thank you for your understanding and patience while we worked to fully restore our services.

The latest version of Ensembl, release 95, is out. This release brings a brand new human regulatory build for GRCh37 and GRCh38, incorporating new data from the ENCODE and Roadmap epigenomics project, plus an update to the mouse GENCODE gene set. We’ve also got a whole host of new vertebrate species, updated genome assemblies for some important agricultural species and the brand new protein structure viewer.

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We’re planning to release the next versions of Ensembl and Ensembl Genomes in December.

We’ve got some exciting new genomes, including polar bear, as well as updated genome assemblies for three important agricultural species. We’ve also got a new regulatory build for the human GRCh38 and GRCh37 assemblies and a brand new protein structure variation view.

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This guest blog is a joint contribution by Laura Harris (GWAS Catalog) and Astrid Gall (Ensembl Outreach). You can contact our colleagues of the GWAS Catalog at gwas-info[at]ebi.ac.uk.

This year marks a special anniversary for the GWAS Catalog, as we have reached ten years since our launch in 2008. The GWAS Catalog is a widely used publicly available resource of all published human genome wide association studies (GWAS) and association results. Each GWAS study contains a wealth of information which is effectively inaccessible to researchers and clinicians without them spending a lot of time undertaking regular systematic reviews of the literature. This is where we can help you!

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From Ensembl 93 onwards, we plan to recommend newer versions of Perl (5.14- 5.26) and BioPerl (1.6.924) when using the Ensembl Perl API. This may affect pipelines which employ the Ensembl Perl API, since we will no longer actively support older versions of Perl and BioPerl.

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