From: Hal Finney (hal@finney.org)
Date: Tue Mar 19 2002 - 14:41:49 MST
Damien B. writes, quoting from Sulston's book:
> "Michael Ashburner, the Cambridge Drosophila geneticist, joint head of the
> European Bioinformatics Institute and a staunch supporter of unrestricted
> data release, wrote an outraged letter to every member of [Science's] board
> of reviewing editors, of which he himself had been a member until not long
> before. He told them that he was refusing to review any more articles for
> Science, or to submit any to the magazine if Science went ahead with the
> Celera paper on the existing basis..." The letter circulated widely and was
> much discussed, but barely surfaced in the press. Sulston's team had
> originally intended to publish in Science, but finally withdrew and took
> their work to Nature. The details in the book are quite fascinating,
> whether or not one agrees with Sulston's position.
I just read today another case like this, at New Scientist,
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992061.
Science will be publishing a special issue to commemorate the sequencing
of the rice genome on April 5. This is considered one of the most
important plant genomes because rice is the primary food source in many
parts of the world. The hope is that the having the genome will help
in engineering rice to improve its productivity and nutritional value.
However the company which did the sequencing, Sygenta (a Swiss company),
isn't sure that they want to release the data to the public. Ashburner,
referenced above, is up in arms. He has released another letter,
co-signed by 20 top geneticists, demanding that Science not let them
publish if they won't release the data.
Normally it is a requirement for publication in Science (and in
science, for that matter) that the experimental data be made available.
An exception was made for Celera's publication of the human genome in
Science. Now presumably based on that precedent Sygenta is waffling on
whether it will release the data.
It will be interesting to see how it comes out. We saw a case with
the bubble fusion a few weeks ago where pressure on the Science editor
backfired. It seems that he has a stubborn streak. Paradoxically,
Ashburner's letter might make him react the same way, which would
strengthen Sygenta's hand and make it easier for them to publish without
releasing the genome. Watch for what happens on April 5!
Hal
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