Time flies: A bibliometric exploration of evolving trends in Drosophila-based research

Drosophila melanogaster has been used as a model organism in biomedical research for over a century, facilitating a number of fundamental breakthroughs and Nobel Prize-winning discoveries in genetics, developmental biology and disease mechanisms. This bibliometric analysis assessed 140,962 Drosophila-related publications indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection from 1984 to 2024. Publication output increased rapidly until the late 1990s, with an average annual growth rate of 13%, before stabilising. Co-authorship analysis revealed extensive international collaborative networks spanning multiple continents, while keyword co-occurrence analysis identified seven major research clusters: developmental biology, cell biology, circadian biology, ageing, evolutionary biology, molecular biology and immunology. Temporal trend analyses demonstrated sustained growth in fields such as neuroscience, neurodegenerative diseases, ageing, circadian biology, immunology, pharmacology, toxicology and environmental sciences. These findings provide a comprehensive overview of contemporary Drosophila-based research, highlighting its ongoing global relevance, evolving applications and emerging research frontiers. The unique advantages of Drosophila for investigating complex biological processes establish it as a more ethical and efficient alternative to vertebrate models in modern biomedical science.