Funding

Current Funding (2022-2026)

Wellcome Trust Grant 223741/Z/21/Z

• Duration: April 1, 2022 to March 31, 2026
• Supporting ongoing VirtualFlyBrain development and maintenance

Historical Funding

Wellcome Trust

Grant 208379/Z/17/Z

• Duration: October 1, 2017 to October 1, 2021

“Virtual Fly Brain: a global informatics hub for Drosophila neurobiology”

• Grant 105023/D/14/Z: October 1, 2014 to January 31, 2018
• Grant 105023/A/14/Z: October 1, 2014 to January 31, 2018
• Grant 105023/C/14/Z: October 1, 2014 to September 30, 2017
• Grant 105023/B/14/Z: October 1, 2014 to September 30, 2017

UK Research Councils

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)

• Grant BB/G02233X/1 (2009): “Standardising the representation of Drosophila anatomy and development for databases”
• Recipients: J. Douglas Armstrong, Michael Ashburner, Cahir O’Kane, David Osumi-Sutherland

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)

• UK e-Science Theme Award supporting initial project establishment
• Recipient: J. Douglas Armstrong

Medical Research Council (MRC)

• Ongoing institutional support for technical infrastructure development

Other Sources

Isaac Newton Trust (University of Cambridge)

• Grant supporting David Osumi-Sutherland’s database work (2007)
• Grant supporting Marta Costa’s research: “Neuroinformatic identification of new types of neuron in the Drosophila brain” (October 2012 - September 2013)

Wellcome Trust - Cambridge Protein Trap Project

• Supporting BrainTrap database development
• Recipients: Kathryn Lilley, Steve Russell, Daniel St. Johnson

Institutional Partners

VirtualFlyBrain is a collaborative project between:

• University of Edinburgh - School of Informatics
• University of Cambridge - Multiple departments including Genetics, Physiology Development & Neuroscience, and Zoology
• EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) - Hinxton, UK
• Wellcome Sanger Institute - Hinxton, UK
• MRC Laboratory for Molecular Biology - Cambridge

Data Partnerships

VirtualFlyBrain integrates data from multiple sources through collaborative partnerships rather than direct funding arrangements:

• FlyBase Consortium
• FlyCircuit Project (National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan)
• Janelia Research Campus (HHMI, USA)
• Multiple international research laboratories

Site Visualization Tools

VirtualFlyBrain utilizes multiple visualization technologies:

Geppetto Framework

• Open source 3D visualization platform co-developed with MetaCell Corporation
• VirtualFlyBrain and MetaCell collaborate on ongoing development and improvements to the Geppetto ecosystem

Woolz Image Processing and IIP3D Server

• Developed by the MRC Human Genetics Unit, University of Edinburgh
• Provides high-performance image serving and client-side visualization tools