A facility manager by day and an artist by night, Deepti Trivedi has over the years become a critical part of the research community at BLiSC, Bengaluru. Deepti Trivedi’s office leaves no doubt in one’s mind that she works with fruit flies. Hand-drawn pictures of fruit flies adorn the walls, the tables and the noticeboards. An artist by night, Deepti manages the Fly Facility at the Bangalore Life Sciences Cluster (BLiSC) during the day. Fruit flies, known to researchers as Drosophila melanogaster, are used widely in research. Although they look nothing like humans, they share nearly all the fundamental life processes, making them a good system for understanding different aspects of biology. They are also very easy to handle and come equipped with a vast array of genetic tools, like a system that allows scientists to activate genes at will, or even change their eye colours. At BLiSC, many labs use these tiny flies to study processes ranging from flight control to stem cell biology. The Fly Facility currently maintains seven thousand stocks of different types of fruit flies, and also ‘makes’ new mutants or transgenic flies for the scientists working at the institute. Deepti oversees this facility, which serves as a resource for scientists outside of BLiSC as well.