The last two years have seen rapid growth in the resources available to the Drosophila community.  Despite the mounting pressure on our colleagues at FlyBase due to reduced funding and recent policy changes, they continue to provide outsized value.  In 2024, FlyBase released a thorough set of updates[1] ,1 and continued integration into The Alliance of Genome Resources[2] ,2, which facilitates interspecific comparisons.  The comprehensive annotation of the enzymes of Drosophila melanogaster[3] 3 is an awe inspiring annotation effort that is now at the tip of your fingers.  When you access individual FlyBase gene annotations, the terms are well described and also available for batch download—plus gene groups are now included. TF2TG, an online resource mining the potential gene targets of transcription factors in Drosophila[4] 4; CrisprBuildr, an open-source application for CRISPR-mediated genome engineering in Drosophila5 ; and FlyCADD, used to predict the functional impact of single nucleotide variants in Drosophila6 are additional bioinformatic tools that leverage the community’s knowledge and, as did Flybook, wrapped up last year. An anatomical atlas of Drosophila melanogaster, the wild-type[5] ,7 brought stunning images into the public domain for use in your teaching.

Bioinformatic resources were complemented by a spate of new and exciting experimental methods: The Fruit Fly Auxodrome, a computer vision setup for longitudinal studies of Drosophila development[6] ;8 a microinjection robot[7] 9to streamline gene editing; spatiotemporal manipulation of histone function[8] 10; multimerized epitope tags for high-sensitivity protein detection[9] 11; CRISPR/Cas9 systems using heat shock for visible clonal analysis and mutant generation12; [10] clonal analysis of fourth chromosome genes[11] 13; split Gal4 drivers for conserved signalin[12] g ligands14; and an in vivo regulation of an endogenously tagged protein by a light-regulated kinase[13] .15

While the Drosophila community is aware of how much these resources matter to our research, we must continue to underscore their importance in ways that people outside our community can understand. This means being mindful of the information you are using and giving credit for the effort. Remember to cite FlyBase in your references, not just with a website link. The FlyBase team deserves recognition for their herculean effort to organize this information for our benefit, and it is equally important to cite the individual researchers who contributed their work. Citations are a personal thank you and the hard-earned recognition of contributions to the cannon. Because we believe that limiting citations shortchanges people’s contributions,[14] [15]  the GSA Journals will never ask you to trim your reference list. The Journals, like GSA, are invested in supporting excellent science and recognizing everyone’s contribution. 

We hope you will join us in person at the 67th Annual Drosophila Research Conference in Chicago, where the community comes together and recognizes the role we each play[16]  in the scientific enterprise through showcasing our science and fostering collaborations. If you are unable to join us in person, we will showcase some of the excellent science presented at the meeting in an upcoming virtual issue of papers published in the GSA Journals.

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