On Sept. 28, 2006, the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI) opened its new office complex in the National Capital Region, the first step in a strategic move to build a larger presence in the greater Washington area.

The mission of the VBI, which was established in 2000, was to focus on the study of the biological sciences and host-pathogen-environment interactions of disease through the combination of biology and information technology. The VBI was renamed the Biocomplexity Institute of Virginia Tech in 2015.