Drosophila melanogaster, the fruit fly, is one of the most amenable and powerful experimental organisms available to biological scientists. It has a short life cycle, it can be kept easily in laboratories, it has polytene chromosomes which can be used for cytological analysis, it has only four chromosomes and a genome size only 20x larger than Escherichia coli, it can be transformed with foreign DNA and, most importantly, there is available an extensive data base of genetic information which has been compiled over the years. Drs. Dan Lindsley and E. H. Grell organized this data base first in 1968 with the publication of "Genetic Variations of Drosophila melanogaster" or as commonly known "The Red Book". The Red Book is a list of all known Drosophila mutants with their genetic phenotypes, map location and history. It has been invaluable to the Drosophila community of scientists. However, particularly with the advent of the ability to transform the fly, the Red Book is sadly outdated. Dr. Lindsley has been working on a revised edition as well as computerizing the information. He plans to take a sabbatical in order to complete this work and has requested support for a year. The importance of the completion of this revised edition to an entire community of scientists is difficult to over estimate. Support is enthusiastically recommended.
