Step 1: Understanding the Concept:
The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) is a major global repository of molecular biology, biomedical, and genomic data.
It is based in Bethesda, Maryland, and is a division of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Step 2: Detailed Explanation:
The National Center for Biotechnology Information was established on November 4, 1988.
It was created through legislation sponsored by US Senator Claude Pepper to establish an information resource for molecular biology data.
NCBI hosts essential biological databases, including GenBank for nucleotide sequences, PubMed for biomedical literature, and BLAST for sequence alignment and database searching.
Therefore, 1988 is the correct founding year.
Step 3: Final Answer:
Hence, the correct option is (B).