Our goal is to make FaceBase the trusted primary data resource for craniofacial researchers worldwide in service of their basic and clinical research needs.
FaceBase is a collaborative NIDCR-funded project that houses comprehensive data in support of advancing research into craniofacial development and malformation. It serves as a community resource by curating large datasets of a variety of types from the craniofacial research community and sharing them via this website. Practices emphasize a comprehensive and multidisciplinary approach to understanding the developmental processes that create the face. The data offered spotlights high-throughput genetic, molecular, biological, imaging and computational techniques. One of the missions of this project is to facilitate cooperation and collaboration throughout the craniofacial research community.
From left to right: Aref Shafaeibejestan, Alejandro Bugacov, Tingwei Guo, Jifan Feng, VyVy Nguyen, Cris Williams, Carl Kesselman, Rob Schuler, and Yang Chai
Overarching Aims
Although about half of all birth defects involve the face and skull, scientists remain unclear about why most occur. To help families at risk for these conditions, what's needed is a comprehensive and systematic understanding of how the faces of healthy children develop and what goes awry to cause common malformations. With today's improved technologies, researchers can generate megabytes (even gigabytes) of information in a single experiment on hundreds of genes that are involved in the process. The challenge now is to learn how best to integrate this information into a meaningful whole, while adding new data to form a more comprehensive picture of this complex developmental process.
FaceBase has become a key factor in making this wealth of information more manageable and useable for on-the-ground scientists, clinicians and surgeons. Over the previous years, the data accumulated has evolved into an important knowledgebase that helps further exploration and analysis of data. We are working to improve this resource and make it as useful as possible by following a three-pronged approach:
- Use F.A.I.R. principles for best practices in sharing and re-use of data for the craniofacial research community: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable.
- Promote and enable data contributions to FaceBase by NIDCR-supported researchers.
- Foster a community of active FaceBase users through outreach activities and dissemination of new features and available datasets.
You can view our list of current data priorities here. And if you have data that you think would be useful to our community, please see details for contributing your data to FaceBase here.
People
FaceBase Staff
Senior Personnel:
- Yang Chai, PhD, DDS, Center for Craniofacial Molecular Biology/University of Southern California
Principal Investigator - Carl Kesselman, PhD, Information Sciences Institute/University of Southern California
Principal Investigator - Rob Schuler, PhD, Information Sciences Institute/University of Southern California
Co-Investigator - Parish Sedghizadeh, DDS, Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry/University of Southern California
Co-Investigator
Other Personnel:
- Alejandro Bugacov, PhD, Information Sciences Institute/University of Southern California
Data Scientist - Jifan Feng, DDS, PhD, Center for Craniofacial Molecular Biology/University of Southern California
Biocurator - Tingwei Guo, PhD, Center for Craniofacial Molecular Biology/University of Southern California
Biocurator - Thach-Vu Ho, Center for Craniofacial Molecular Biology/University of Southern California
Biocurator - VyVy Nguyen, Center for Craniofacial Molecular Biology/University of Southern California
Project Administrator - Janet Sanchez, Center for Craniofacial Molecular Biology/University of Southern California
Biocurator - Cris Williams, Information Sciences Institute/University of Southern California
Consortium Coordinator and Communications Specialist
FaceBase Scientific Advisory Group
FaceBase has access to a panel of community members - some who served as spoke labs in previous versions of FaceBase and others who are respected voices in craniofacial research - who meet regularly to review the progress of data repository evolution.
- Tara L. Aghaloo, University of California, Los Angeles
- Samantha Brugmann, Cincinnati Children's Hospital
- Azeez Butali, University of Iowa
- Kitrina G. Cordell, Louisiana State University School of Dentistry
- Jesse A. Goldstein, (Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh)
- Matthew Harris, Boston Children's Hospital
- Rulang Jiang, Cincinnati Children's Hospital
- Mohammad Khalifeh, University of Southern California
- Mary Marazita, University of Pittsburgh
- Pedro Sanchez, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
- Axel Visel, University of California—Lawrence Berkeley Lab
Advisor Emeritus
We are grateful for the contributions of the following individuals as FaceBase advisors:
- Elizabeth Leslie, Emory University (served 2020–2021)
- Richard Maas, Harvard Medical School (served 2020–2025)
- Owen White, University of Maryland School of Medicine (served 2020–2024)
NIH Program Staff
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) — The Nation's Medical Research Agency — includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov .
The National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) is the Nation's leading funder of research on oral, dental, and craniofacial health.
NIDCR/NIH Leadership and Program Staff:
- Jennifer Webster-Cyriaque, acting NIDCR Director
- Lu Wang, Program Director
- Preethi Chander, Acting Chief, Translational Genomics Research Branch
- Alicia Chou, Director, Translational Genetics & Genomics Program
- Noffisat Oki, Director, Data Science, Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Program
- Zubaida Saifudeen, Director, Developmental Biology and Genetics Program
- Jason Wan Director, Mineralized Tissue Physiology Program
- Vidhya Venkateswaran, Data Scholar
The National Institute of Deafness and other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) conducts and supports research in the normal and disordered processes of hearing, balance, taste, smell, voice, speech, and language.
NIDCD/NIH Leadership and Program Staff:
- Debara Tucci, NIDCD Director
- Amy Poremba, Program Director
- Troy Hackett
- Janet Cyr
FaceBase External Scientific Panel
The NIDCR staff consults with a distinguished panel of scientists for high level guidance on data priorities and the progress and direction of FaceBase. They are:
- Alonso Carrasco-Labra, Penn Dental Medicine, University of Pennsylvania
- Justin Cotney, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute
- Rafael da Costa Monsanto, University of Minnesota
- Stephany Duda, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
- Owen White, University of Maryland School of Medicine