The Laboratory of Human Retrovirology and Immunoinformatics, a program under the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, has updated its bioinformatics resource system—known as the Database for Annotation, Visualization, and Integrated Discovery (DAVID). The system provides investigators with a set of functional annotation tools to better understand the biological meaning behind large lists of genes. The DAVID updates increase discovery power and expand its knowledgebase (a database that uses a unique gene concept to pull together multiple sources of functional annotations).

The latest updates to the system include:

• increased taxonomy coverage and updates to existing annotation types.
• new annotations to the knowledgebase, including small molecule-gene interactions from PubChem, drug-gene interactions from DrugBank, tissue expression information from the Huma Protein Atlas, disease information from DisGeNET, and pathways from WikiPathways and PathBank.
• newly implemented species parameters for uploading gene symbol lists to prevent user confusion and increase the efficiency of list uploads. 

The recent updates will grow the knowledgebase and discovery power of DAVID as a bioinformatics resource to the benefit of all research connected to genetics and genetic diseases, including cancer research. A deeper understanding of genes can lead researchers to a clearer understanding of mutations, the driving mechanism behind cancer.