Alliance of Genome Resources: An extensible, sustainable knowledge commons framework for model organism databases

A new consortium is transforming comparative genetics and genomics through the collaborative development of a knowledge commons platform that features shared infrastructure, common user interfaces, and common programmatic access protocols (APIs). Six major model organism databases (MODs) and the Gene Ontology Consortium (GOC) have formed this consortium, the Alliance of Genome Resources. In the spring of 2016, NIH’s National Human Genome Research Institute, a major funder of genome databases, has implemented a 30% reduction in funding for the MODs and the GOC. The creation of the Alliance was encouraged by a community campaign that showed support for community genome resources that was championed by the Genetics Society of America, the Society for Developmental Biology, and the American Society of Cell Biology. Over 10,000 signatures on a petition in support of the MODs and the GOC were collected in a matter of weeks and was presented to the Director of NIH at The Allied Genetics Conference (TAGC) in July 2016. In this poster we report on the progress we have made since the 2016 TAGC meeting.