On Oct. 23, 2025, researchers at a Harvard Medical School laboratory announced they are uncertain how they will continue supporting a large public genetic database after its primary source of funding expired last month.

The Allen Ancient DNA Resource is a manually curated collection of genetic data from thousands of ancient and present-day individuals, covering more than 1.2 million positions in the genome. The project’s eight-year grant from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation ended in September, leaving its future unclear.

David E. Reich ’96, professor of genetics at HMS who leads the AADR, said the lab is still looking for a funding source and is at risk of shutting down the publicly accessible resource that has been downloaded more than 67,000 times by researchers across the world.

The most recent version was published in September 2024. Reich’s lab anticipated an updated release for the spring of 2025, but it was postponed due to ongoing funding uncertainties.

Reich wrote that the proposal received an “excellent score” and would have been guaranteed funding under normal circumstances. But due to reductions in federal awards to Harvard, he expects that funding will not be continued.

Originally accessible through the lab’s website, the data now sit in a “professional” repository that receives more than 200 downloads a day. The Reich lab’s bioinformatics director Shop Mallick said the project filled a major gap in the field by increasing accessibility to analysis of human ancient DNA datasets.

According to Reich, each release adds newly published data — about 50 papers’ worth a year — while improving the quality and consistency of existing material. The current version includes about 1.24 genome million positions, and Reich said the lab plans to expand the next version to roughly 2 million, though that would still only represent a subsection of research studies in the field.