Blog 3 - The Underutilization of Public Mouse Repositories

This week an article appeared in the Opinion section of Nature titled Post-publication sharing of data and tools. This article was part the cuurent special on NatureNews dedicated to Data Sharing. The piece aimed to take stock of the current role of prepublication data release. Guidelines regarding the release of such information remain largely “piecemeal” and do not provide adequate rules for the sharing of such knowledge with the larger scientific community aside from a few decisions made in the field:

The Bermuda Principles (1997):

1. Primary Genomic Sequence Should be in the Public Domain

2. Primary Genomic Sequence Should be Rapidly Released

· Sequence assemblies should be released as soon as possible; in some centres, assemblies of greater than 1 Kb would be released automatically on a daily basis.

· Finished annotated sequence should be submitted immediately to the public databases.

-http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/research/bermuda.shtml

The Fort Lauderdale Report (2003):

1. Reaffirmed position of the Bermuda Principles.

2. The attendees recommended that the principle of rapid pre-publication release should apply to other types of data from other large-scale production centers specifically established as ‘community resource projects’.

3. The attendees recognized that pre-publication data release might conflict with a fundamental scientific incentive – publishing the first analysis of one's own data.

-www.genome.gov/Pages/Research/WellcomeReport0303.pdf

Clearly, while these decisions are sound, but enforcement is difficult and variable, thus this opinion article is largely concerned with Rome Agenda, designed to “assist the stakeholders in developing a coordinated and directed approach to the main factors inhibiting free sharing of the fruits of publicly funded mouse research” organized by CASIMIR (Coordination and Sustainability of International Mouse Informatics Resources). The resulting decisions were largely a reiteration of the need for coordinated policies. This issue is made more difficult, however due to the potential of patenting “genetically manipulated mice.”

Thus the Rome Agenda outlined four main suggestions related to access:

1. Mice should be deposited into public repositories within a specifically allotted time after publication.

2. Scientific papers should be required to describe to access their data and resources.

3. Papers should acknowledge any other sources of data they used.

4. Journals and funding institutions have a major role in enforcing these rules.

Finally, the members of CASIMIR and those at the Rome meeting state that “shared data are only useful if they are searchable and usable” thus standards pertaining to data attributes such as structure and semantics as well as the use of appropriate metadata.