The Genome Annotation Center is currently working on annotating the genome of Drosophila psudeoobscura, a species that was chosen because of its are evolutionary relationship to D. melanogaster.  At this time twelve species of Drosphila have been completely sequenced so far. With D. melanogaster and D. psudoobscura being the first and second.  These two species are separated by 25 to 50 myr of evolution and are good candidates for discovery of cis-regulatory regions, conserved protein coding regions and provide support for gene predictions.

Also known as the common fruit fly, Drosophila are one of the most commonly used model organisms in Biology.  They are used in the study of genetics, physiology, microbial pathogenesis, development and life history evolution. They make a great model organism because they are easy to take care of, breed quickly, and lay many eggs.

Part of the mission of FlyBase UNM is to recruit students into the field of Genomics, including  Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Systems Biology, Proteomics, Genome Annotation, Genome Curation, all other related fields.  UNM is a minority serving institution and students here participate in ongoing genomic research projects.