BioCollections: Connecting Sequence Data to Physical Specimens

NCBI’s BioCollections is a curated database of metadata for institutions that house specimens, cultures, and other biological materials. These institutions include museums, herbaria, stock centers, and culture collection centers. Each BioCollections record describes an institution and its collection, and includes standardized details such as the institution name, institution code, collection code, collection type, country, and available link out URL formula. When researchers submit sequences to NCBI, the BioCollections institution code and specimen identifier help link the sequence record to the corresponding physical specimen held in an institutional repository.

What’s new?

BioCollections is moving to a new home with an updated design where you can browse, search, and find a collection record. Continue reading “BioCollections: Connecting Sequence Data to Physical Specimens” →

Upcoming Transition of the Public Access Compliance Monitor (PACM) in Support of the 2024 NIH Public Access Policy

As shared in a previous National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) Insights post, NCBI at the National Library of Medicine (NLM) is making ongoing updates to several services to support implementation of the 2024 NIH Public Access Policy, which went into effect on July 1, 2025. As part of the effort, NCBI has been exploring alternative strategies for helping institutions identify their funded articles and track manuscript submissions.

After September 30, 2026, the services that NCBI offers to assist institutions with public access compliance monitoring will move from the Public Access Compliance Monitor (PACM) to a new service within the NIH Manuscript Submission System (NIHMS). After September 30 PACM will no longer be available.

The new service, the NIHMS Institutional Monitor, is now available to assist institutions who have received NIH awards to track the status of Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAMs) submitted to the NIH Manuscript Submission (NIHMS) system. Continue reading “Upcoming Transition of the Public Access Compliance Monitor (PACM) in Support of the 2024 NIH Public Access Policy” →

Now Available: RefSeq Release 236

RefSeq release 236 is now available online and from the FTP site! You can access RefSeq data through NCBI Datasets. The release is provided in several directories as a complete dataset and also as divided by logical groupings.   

What’s included in this release? 

As of July 6, 2026, this full release incorporates genomic, transcript, and protein data containing:  

629,953,391 records 
482,864,455 proteins 
83,806,434 RNAs 
Sequences from 182,465 organisms

Continue reading “Now Available: RefSeq Release 236” →

Now Available! NCBI Hidden Markov Models (HMM) Release 20.0

Download release 20.0 of the NCBI protein profile Hidden Markov models (HMMs) used by the Prokaryotic Genome Annotation Pipeline (PGAP). You can search this collection against your favorite prokaryotic proteins to identify their function using the HMMER sequence analysis package.  

What’s new?  

Release 20.0 contains:  

18,950 HMMs maintained by NCBI  
497 new HMMs since release 19.0

Continue reading “Now Available! NCBI Hidden Markov Models (HMM) Release 20.0” →

Standards for Sequence Read Archive (SRA) Data Submission

What you need to know for 2026 and beyond!

The volume of genomic sequencing data is growing rapidly, and we want to ensure that publicly shared datasets remain useful, findable, and scientifically trustworthy. To support this goal, the Sequence Read Archive (SRA) is implementing a set of data submission standards that improve data consistency, quality, and long-term value—benefiting both the research community and the data submitters.

Why new standards?

High-quality data and metadata ensure that researchers can effectively reuse sequencing data and that SRA can process submissions quickly and accurately. These standards align SRA submissions with evolving INSDC expectations and best practices in genomic data stewardship by:

- Preventing common formatting and metadata errors
- Ensuring that sequencing runs remain useful for future scientific research
- Speeding up SRA data processing and public release timelines

These standards are expected to go into effect at the end of 2026. Here’s what to expect: Continue reading “Standards for Sequence Read Archive (SRA) Data Submission” →

New Minimum Requirements for BioProject and BioSample Fields

BioProject and BioSample support the discovery, access, and reuse of nucleotide sequence data at NCBI. BioProject records provide a centralized place for accessing diverse data generated as part of a single research initiative. BioSample records describe the biological source materials used to generate those data. To ensure data quality, NCBI, in conjunction with the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC), has established minimum criteria for submission acceptance. These changes are part of NCBI’s broader effort to implement INSDC minimum specifications across sequence data resources and submission workflows.

What’s new?

Starting early 2027, new validation requirements will be applied during BioProject and BioSample submissions. Continue reading “New Minimum Requirements for BioProject and BioSample Fields” →

New Minimum Requirements for Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic Genome Submissions

High-quality submissions make genome data more valuable for the entire research community. To support data quality and usability, the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC) has established minimum criteria for genome submission acceptance. Genome submissions to GenBank must meet the applicable INSDC minimum requirements to be processed, assigned accession numbers, and released publicly. These changes are part of NCBI’s broader effort to implement INSDC minimum specifications across sequence data resources and submission workflows.

What’s new?

Starting January 2027, the following new requirements will be validated at the time of submission in Submission Portal-Genome: Continue reading “New Minimum Requirements for Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic Genome Submissions” →

GenBank Release 272.0 is Available!

GenBank release 272.0 (6/12/2026) is now available on the NCBI FTP site. This release has 57.69 trillion bases and 6.52 billion records.

The current release has:

261,460,182 traditional records containing 7,289,942,983,522 base pairs of sequence data
4,756,526,485 WGS records containing 45,628,511,953,497 base pairs of sequence data
1,058,643,373 bulk-oriented TSA records containing 898,651,493,967 base pairs of sequence data
191,365,090 bulk-oriented TLS records containing 79,162,820,303 base pairs of sequence data

Continue reading “GenBank Release 272.0 is Available!” →

BankIt Submitters: GenBank Submission Update

As previously announced, major changes are being made to enhance your GenBank submission experience. As of April 2026, you can submit to GenBank using our new simplified wizards in Submission Portal-GenBank.

What now?

Use Submission Portal-GenBank for all GenBank sequence submissions, except for sequence alignments
Use BankIt only if you are submitting aligned sequences for feature propagation

Continue reading “BankIt Submitters: GenBank Submission Update” →

Now Available: RefSeq Release 235

RefSeq release 235 is now available online and from the FTP site! You can access RefSeq data through NCBI Datasets. The release is provided in several directories as a complete dataset and also as divided by logical groupings.   

What’s included in this release? 

As of May 11, 2026, this full release incorporates genomic, transcript, and protein data containing:  

616,942,961 records 
473,570,633 proteins 
81,124,747 RNAs 
Sequences from 180,620 organisms

Continue reading “Now Available: RefSeq Release 235” →