The Faculty of Computers, Informatics and Microelectronics of the Technical University of Moldova marks a new achievement of international scientific significance. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Viorel Munteanu, Prof. Dr. Habil. Viorel Bostan, and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Dumitru Ciorbă are among the authors of the article “Towards a decentralized future for open-science databases”, published on 19 May 2026 in Nature Genetics.
Nature Genetics is one of the leading journals in genetics and bioinformatics, with a Journal Impact Factor of 29.0 and a 5-year Journal Impact Factor of 37.4 for 2024, according to data published by Nature Portfolio.
The article addresses a topic of major importance for contemporary science: the future of open scientific databases. The authors highlight the vulnerabilities of centralized biological and scientific data infrastructures, which are exposed to risks related to cyberattacks, funding disruptions, loss of access, and governance limitations. In response, the paper proposes a hybrid framework integrating federated and decentralized models to strengthen the resilience, sustainability, and responsible governance of scientific data as a global public good.
Of particular significance is the contribution of Viorel Munteanu, one of the first authors of the article, who recently defended his PhD thesis in Computer Science at TUM, entitled “Continuous-Time Phylogeny-Based Markov Models for Gene Dynamics in Microbial Pangenomes.” His defense represented a milestone in the development of bioinformatics at TUM, being the first doctoral thesis in bioinformatics developed and defended within the university.
This new publication confirms the continuity of an outstanding scientific trajectory and further strengthens the positioning of the TUM Bioinformatics Laboratory, led by Viorel Munteanu, within international research networks at the intersection of computer science, computational biology, data infrastructures, and open science.
The article is the result of extensive international collaboration. Of particular relevance for FCIM and TUM is the continued collaboration with Serghei Mangul, corresponding author of the paper and TUM-affiliated researcher, who has recently taken leadership of a new research group while maintaining scientific ties with the FCIM Bioinformatics Laboratory, led by Viorel Munteanu. The paper also strengthens collaboration with Ștefan cel Mare University of Suceava, through the research group coordinated by Prof. Dr. Mihai Dimian.
At the same time, the publication brings together contributions from a broad international network of institutions, including Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, ETH Zurich, Sage Bionetworks, University of California, Los Angeles, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, ELIXIR Hub, Weill Cornell Medicine, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, Oakland University, Jagiellonian University, and Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence.
Publication in Nature Genetics reflects the international visibility of the research developed at FCIM and demonstrates that the emerging fields cultivated within the faculty, including bioinformatics, data analysis, computational modelling, and digital infrastructures for science, contribute to globally relevant scientific topics.
The article is available here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-026-02606-x