DAVID: a web server for functional annotation and functional enrichment analysis of gene lists (2025 update)

DAVID is a widely used bioinformatics resource that provides functional annotation and functional enrichment analysis for gene and protein lists derived from high-throughput studies. It integrates a comprehensive gene-centered knowledgebase with a suite of web-accessible analytical tools. Since its initial release in 2003, DAVID developments have been published in 12 papers and cited >80 000 times. Here, we report updates made since the previous NAR Web Server Issue publication in 2022. This update introduces two new tools: DAVID Ortholog for cross-species functional analysis and DAVID Gene Search for identifier-agnostic gene exploration, modernizes the web interface, and implements a new backend architecture that decouples the frontend from the legacy Java processing engine. A new Servlet layer and REST APIs enable asynchronous processing and support integration of a Neo4j graph database for relationship-based queries. Major existing tools have been redesigned with modern, interactive interfaces, and multiformat result export. The pathway viewer has been redesigned with interactive drag-and-zoom navigation, animated user gene highlighting, and publication-quality downloads. Collectively, these updates enhance performance and usability, and the new backend architecture enables independent evolution of frontend and backend components while maintaining continuity with legacy analyses. DAVID remains freely available at https://davidbioinformatics.nih.gov without login.