kristoff@NET.BIO.NET (Dave Kristofferson) (12/05/89)
Unfortunately just after I posted a message to BIONEWS a few weeks back I went out of town first on business and then on vacation, so I did not get a chance to follow up on my posting about sequence data submission policy. The discussion received only two public comments directed to the question(s) that I posed and then veered off into a discussion of methods for on-line submission of data and what GenBank and EMBL currently think about these methods. [My original questions were: (1) How long should people involved in large scale sequencing projects be allowed to sit on finished data, and its corollary, (2) how will they get credit for their work if they must submit immediately?] I would like to try once again to bring the question back to the original topic and solicit more response. Unfortunately one of the more interesting suggestions was made to me in private, and the author was apparently hesitant to go public with it. Therefore I am going to pass the suggestion on anonymously for further public comment: Message from unnamed reader: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I have a databank practicality question concerning your Wolftrap Sequencing missile. The groups that are doing the sequencing will certainly want and deserve some holding time, in order to look for the jewels/gold in their hard mined ore. This is to be balanced against the benefits to anyone/all, of a knowledge that a sequence just obtained is already being analyzed in another lab. Hence. Could GenBank have a "privileged section" in which data could be deposited for some maximal agreed upon time period, without being publically available. It should however be available for online similiarity searchs. When a hit is scored (after elimination of high copy number sequences), the first depositors of the sequence would then be alerted. This would stimulate group one to make their data public before group two outpaced them. Obviously, more complicated release/communication protocols could be considered. This is just a first thought. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I have also read a proposal from the NLM to deposit the data in a similar privileged section and automatically notify *both* parties involved if a hit is found, i.e., tell them nothing more than that a hit has been scored and give them information to contact each other (of course, if one knows what your colleague's research area is ... 8-)!! How about some comments or better yet, improvements on this? Surely with all of the collected wisdom accessible over the network, we have the potential for a fruitful exchange. At least I hope everyone out there isn't excessively shy or embarassed about their typing, etc. Heck, I'll blush to admit that even I often run things through spelling checkers, and my IQ must be at least 100!! We'd really like to hear from some of the top minds in the scientific world on these issues, but I keep getting told that they don't use computers. Hmm ... 8-)! (For those who don't know what 8-) means, look at it by tilting your head to the left.) Please send your replies to bionews@genbank.bio.net and NOT to me personally as I am just going to ask you if I can post them! Sincerely, David Kristofferson, Ph.D. GenBank On-line Service Manager kristoff@net.bio.net P.S. - If you would like to get on the BIONEWS newsgroup mailing list, please drop me a note and I'll sign you up and/or provide you with complete information about the BIOSCI newgroups in which the GenBank On-line Service participates.