title: Fruit flies in biomedical research.
abstract: Many scientists complain that the current funding situation is dire. Indeed, there has been an overall decline in support in funding for research from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Within the Drosophila field, some of us question how long this funding crunch will last as it demotivates principal investigators and perhaps more importantly affects the long-term career choice of many young scientists. Yet numerous very interesting biological processes and avenues remain to be investigated in Drosophila, and probing questions can be answered fast and efficiently in flies to reveal new biological phenomena. Moreover, Drosophila is an excellent model organism for studies that have translational impact for genetic disease and for other medical implications such as vector-borne illnesses. We would like to promote a better collaboration between Drosophila geneticists/biologists and human geneticists/bioinformaticians/clinicians, as it would benefit both fields and significantly impact the research on human diseases.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), Houston, Texas 77030 Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), Houston, Texas 77030 Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute, Texas Children's Hospital, Houston, Texas 77030.
authors.forename: Michael F
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5245-5910
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Wangler
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), Houston, Texas 77030 Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute, Texas Children's Hospital, Houston, Texas 77030 Program in Developmental Biology, Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), Texas 77030.
authors.forename: Shinya
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2172-8036
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yamamoto
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), Houston, Texas 77030 Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute, Texas Children's Hospital, Houston, Texas 77030 Program in Developmental Biology, Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), Texas 77030 Department of Neuroscience, Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), Texas 77030 Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Houston, Texas 77030 hbellen@bcm.edu.
authors.forename: Hugo J
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5992-5989
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Bellen
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004330:Drosophila / Q000235:genetics*; D030342:Genetic Diseases, Inborn; D036281:Genetic Research; D023281:Genomics; D006801:Humans; D009316:National Institutes of Health (U.S.); D014481:United States
keywords: Drosophila; GWAS; collaboration; functional genomics; funding; genetic disease; human; public health; whole-exome sequencing