Funding gaps threaten key biological databases essential for research
Major curated databases for yeast, fruit flies and human genes are losing long-term financial support, raising concerns about their future availability.
The yeast database PomBase has lost its core funding from the UK charity Wellcome. FlyBase, which serves Drosophila researchers, saw its curation team defunded after NIH awards ended in 2025. The human gene-nomenclature database HGNC managed to secure a single NIH award in 2024 after a period without funding. These setbacks highlight the vulnerability of essential research infrastructure.
Why it matters
Research across biology depends on these databases; funding loss could disrupt scientific progress.
In this story
biological databasescurated dataresearch infrastructurefunding cutsPomBaseFlyBaseHGNCWellcomeNIHscience funding
