DOE Human Genome Data/Resource Sharing Policies

[STODOLSKY at OERV01.ER.DOE.GOV]

DOE OHER Proposes Guidelines for Access to Its Human 
Genome Program Data and Material Resources 
 
 
The information and resources generated by the U.S. Department 
of Energy Office of Health and Environmental Research (DOE 
OHER) Human Genome Program have become sizeable, and the 
number of collaborations is growing steadily. Because of this, DOE 
OHER is planning to adopt the following guidelines to govern 
access to DNA mapping and sequencing data and the sharing of 
materials. It is expected that adoption of these guidelines will be 
an agenda item of the next DOE-NIH Joint Subcommittee on the 
Human Genome, which will meet in Irvine, California, in January 
1992. 
 
Although the desire of DOE OHER is to maximize outreach to 
the scientific community, there is also an acute awareness of the 
investigator's need to maintain an edge in the present 
competition-driven environment. Genetic materials and information 
are being accumulated rapidly, and much of it is deposited in and 
available through various repositories (American Type Culture 
Collection, Genome Data Base, GenBank, etc.). 
 
For materials and information not yet in repositories, the following 
sharing guidelines for DOE Human Genome Program awardees, 
contractors, and grantees have been developed. These guidelines 
are the result of much internal discussion and consultation with 
investigators at several laboratories dealing with these issues;  these 
guidelines were carefully considered by the DOE Human Genome 
Coordinating Committee. 
--------------------------------------------------------------
 
Published Data 
Information and materials either developed by or provided to a 
DOE awardee, contractor, or grantee and published in the open 
literature should be made freely available to the scientific 
community. Reasonable requests for information and materials 
should be honored to the extent that the DOE investigator has the 
resources to accommodate them.  
 
Recipients should abide by any donor laboratory's requirements 
pertaining to further distribution, nomenclature, or proprietary 
rights. Proper acknowledgement of the donor laboratory should be 
made by the recipient in any subsequent publications and reports. 
There may be exceptions to this sharing policy for materials not 
originating in the laboratory of the DOE awardee, contractor, or 
grantee and covered under a separate third-party agreement.  
 
 
Collaboration 
Collaboration between an awardee, contractor, or grantee and a 
requestor is encouraged as a means of advancing the science and 
protecting the proprietary rights of the laboratory originating the 
data. The awardee should provide to collaborators, upon request, 
those materials (clones, cell lines, probes, etc.) relevant to the 
region of mutual interest and information on the status of the 
corresponding region of the larger physical/genetic map. 
 
 
Suitable Delay 
Unpublished information and materials also should be made 
available to the scientific community after a suitable delay that will 
give the originating scientist(s) time to do follow-up work. 
Specifically, data generated internally by the awardee, contractor, 
or grantee or through external collaboration should be entered into 
a database once the information is felt to be useful to the scientific 
community. At the time of entry, these data should be encoded 
with a time stamp. Information stored in the database should be 
made accessible no later than 6 months after data entry. Materials 
(cell lines, clones, probes, etc.) associated with the data should also 
be made accessible no later than 6 months after data entry. 
 
The DOE awardee, contractor, or grantee should endeavor to 
accommodate the desires of all requestors. It is understood that, 
at times when this cannot be done, exceptions will have to be 
made.  
 
All information and material resources ultimately should be 
available in a public database and/or repository. In addition, data 
of value to collaborators and other investigators but too detailed 
to be stored in central archives should be translated into 
machine-readable form and made directly accessible using standard 
methods and data query protocols via Internet. 
 
 
If there are any questions or if concerns arise about these 
guidelines, please contact 
 
Daniel W. Drell 
Office of Health and Environmental Research 
ER-72/GTN 
U.S. Department of Energy 
Washington, DC 20585 

301/353-4742, FTS 233-4742 
Fax: 301/353-5051, FTS 233-5051 
(note: the 353 prefix will be changed to 903 on November 9, 1991)

email on internet: drell at oerv01.er.doe.gov
CC:
	bionews at genbank.bio.net
	gnome-prg at genbank.bio.net
	human-genome-program at genbank.bio.net