Oliver Stephen G, Lock Antonia, Harris Midori A, Nurse Paul, Wood Valerie
Cambridge Systems Biology Centre & Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge, Sanger Building, 80 Tennis Court Road, Cambridge, CB2 1GA, UK.
Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, and UCL Institute of Healthy Ageing, University College London, Darwin Building, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK.
BMC Biol. 2016 Jun 22;14:49. doi: 10.1186/s12915-016-0276-z.
Modern biomedical research depends critically on access to databases that house and disseminate genetic, genomic, molecular, and cell biological knowledge. Even as the explosion of available genome sequences and associated genome-scale data continues apace, the sustainability of professionally maintained biological databases is under threat due to policy changes by major funding agencies. Here, we focus on model organism databases to demonstrate the myriad ways in which biological databases not only act as repositories but actively facilitate advances in research. We present data that show that reducing financial support to model organism databases could prove to be not just scientifically, but also economically, unsound.
现代生物医学研究在很大程度上依赖于能够存储和传播遗传、基因组、分子和细胞生物学知识的数据库。尽管可用基因组序列及相关基因组规模数据的爆炸式增长仍在迅速持续，但由于主要资助机构的政策变化，专业维护的生物数据库的可持续性正受到威胁。在此，我们聚焦于模式生物数据库，以展示生物数据库不仅作为存储库，还积极推动研究进展的多种方式。我们提供的数据表明，减少对模式生物数据库的资金支持不仅在科学上，而且在经济上可能都被证明是不合理的。
