FlyBase is an online bioinformatics database and the primary repository of genetic and molecular data for the insect family Drosophilidae.
[1] For the most extensively studied species and model organism, Drosophila melanogaster, a wide range of data are presented in different formats.
Information in FlyBase originates from a variety of sources ranging from large-scale genome projects to the primary research literature.
[2] Query tools allow navigation of FlyBase through DNA or protein sequence, by gene or mutant name, or through terms from the several ontologies used to capture functional, phenotypic, and anatomical data.
This niche was initially filled by community newsletters such as the Drosophila Information Service (DIS), which dates back to 1934 when the field was starting to spread from Thomas Hunt Morgan's lab.
As computer infrastructure developed in the '80s and '90s, these newsletters gave way and merged with internet mailing lists, and these eventually became online resources and data.
In October 1992, the National Center for Human Genome Research of the NIH funded the FlyBase project with the objective of designing, building and releasing a database of genetic and molecular information concerning Drosophila melanogaster.
[13] The site also provides a large database of images illustrating the full genome, and several movies detailing embryogenesis (ImageBrowser Archived 2007-03-24 at the Wayback Machine).