Federal Project Grant Award Summary

The National Institutes of Health Office of the Director awarded University of Wisconsin–Madison a $418,641 Project Grant under the Research Infrastructure Programs (CFDA 93.351) for a two-year initiative running from July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2028. The project addresses critical validation challenges in Drosophila (fruit fly) research by developing and applying a novel genomic authentication pipeline to assess genetic integrity across widely-used laboratory fly stocks. The principal deliverables include: (1) characterization of 200 commonly-studied laboratory fly stocks to detect contamination and document genomic variation, and (2) detailed investigation of genetic and phenotypic variation within three key reference stocks by sequencing genomes and performing biomedical trait assays on 100 sub-lines sourced from different laboratories. These research outputs will provide the biomedical research community with evidence-based validation tools and characterization data to ensure reproducibility and comparability of experimental results across institutions.

The project directly supports the NIH Office of Research Infrastructure Programs' mission to advance research resources and models for human disease studies. By illuminating discrepancies among nominally identical fly stocks maintained by different laboratories and developing practical authentication methods, this work strengthens the scientific rigor of Drosophila-based biomedical research—a critical model system for basic biology and disease modeling. The genomic authentication pipeline and resulting stock characterization data will serve as reusable research infrastructure with broad applicability across the research community.