GenBank release 273.0 (8/15/2026) is now available on the NCBI FTP site. This release has 60.07 trillion bases and 6.68 billion records.  The current release has:   267,383,895 traditional records containing 8,236,878,868,450 base pairs of sequence data 5,132,699,813 WGS records containing 50,829,714,144,609 base pairs of sequence data 1,082,802,170 bulk-oriented TSA records containing 923,937,913,366 base pairs of … Continue reading GenBank Release 273.0 is Available! →

17 August 2026

Download the updated bacterial and archaeal reference genome collection! We built this collection of 23,519 genomes by selecting the “best” genome assembly for each species among the 500,000+ prokaryotic genomes in RefSeq.   What’s new?   Twenty-one species are represented in this collection for the first time   114 species are represented by a better assembly  Eight species were removed because of changes in NCBI Taxonomy … Continue reading Now Available: Updated Bacterial and Archaeal Reference Genome Collection →

13 August 2026

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 … Continue reading BioCollections: Connecting Sequence Data to Physical Specimens →

11 August 2026

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

27 July 2026

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   New eukaryotic … Continue reading Now Available: RefSeq Release 236 →

13 July 2026

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    You can search and view the … Continue reading Now Available! NCBI Hidden Markov Models (HMM) Release 20.0 →

1 July 2026

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 … Continue reading Standards for Sequence Read Archive (SRA) Data Submission →

29 June 2026

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 … Continue reading New Minimum Requirements for BioProject and BioSample Fields →

23 June 2026

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 … Continue reading New Minimum Requirements for Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic Genome Submissions →

18 June 2026

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 … Continue reading GenBank Release 272.0 is Available! →

16 June 2026