Genome project: An experiment in sharing
The Human Genome Project is in many respects a gigantic experiment in data sharing. Around the world, investigators are working on pieces of the same puzzle. And whether the project succeeds will depend in large measure on these investigators making available their data and materials - cell lines, probes, and clones - to their colleagues and competitors. While sharing may be the norm in, say, immunology or bacterial genetics, human genetics has always been intensely competitive. So should the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy, which both fund the genome project, promulgate rules to govern access to data and sharing of materials A DOE committee has drafted some guidelines, which have yet to be formally endorsed. They stipulate that data and materials must be publicly available 6 months after they are generated or characterized. But at NIH, James Watson, who heads the genome project, is shying away from setting rules. He points to the new collaborative plans to map chromosome 21 as evidence that the community will develop its own ways of sharing data. Because of its known role in Down syndrome and its suspected role in Alzheimer's disease, chromosome 21 has generated a vast amount of interest. Lots of groups are already hard at work constructing maps of the chromosome - first developing a series of landmarks spaced along the chromosome, and then a collection of ordered DNA fragments. But the maps all these groups generate will be essentially useless unless they pool their data and adopt a common language.
- OSTI ID:
- 6414551
- Journal Information:
- Science (Washington, D.C.); (USA), Vol. 248:4958; ISSN 0036-8075
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
GENETIC MAPPING
RESEARCH PROGRAMS
HUMAN CHROMOSOME 21
CHROMOSOMES
COMPETITION
DECISION MAKING
DNA
DNA SEQUENCING
DNA-CLONING
GENES
INTERAGENCY COOPERATION
INTERLABORATORY COMPARISONS
MAN
RECOMMENDATIONS
ANIMALS
CLONING
COOPERATION
DNA HYBRIDIZATION
HYBRIDIZATION
MAMMALS
MAPPING
NUCLEIC ACIDS
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
PRIMATES
STRUCTURAL CHEMICAL ANALYSIS
VERTEBRATES
550400* - Genetics