How Well Do Facts Travel?: Packaging Small Facts for Re-Use: Databases in Model Organism Biology

Model organism such as fruit-flies, mice and zebrafish are the undisputed protagonists of 21 century biology. Their prominent position as experimental systems has been further enhanced by the recent sequencing of their genomes, which opened up new opportunities for cross-species comparisons and inferences (the so-called ‘post-genomic era’). Such comparative research requires that facts about model organisms be able to travel across a multitude of research contexts. Indeed, the very idea of focusing on a limited set of organisms stems from the desire to bring together as many facts about these organisms as possible, in the hope to increase the scientific understanding of their biology and thus use them as representatives for the study of other species. Moreover, the high costs associated to the production of facts make their use beyond their context of production into an economic, as well as a scientific, priority.