IN A display of apparent altruism, two drugs companies have opened up their private gold mine of genetic data to academics. But their generosity has its limits. The companies admit that they are keeping the most valuable 鈥渘uggets鈥� to themselves, and are hoarding gene sequences that might be of value to their rivals.
The database, which is accessible over the Internet, includes 345 000 gene fragments called expressed sequence tags. Microbiologists use these ESTs to trace genes they are interested in.
The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), a nonprofit-making laboratory in Rockville, Maryland, supplied 105 000 ESTs to the new database. Another 55 000 were contributed by Human Genome Sciences, a Rockville company with close ties to TIGR. The rest of the ESTs came from public databases. They are all stored on the TIGR database and constitute the largest public collection of ESTs, relating to more than one third of the estimated 100 000 human genes. A guide published in last week鈥檚 issue of Nature describes how to access the database.
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Much of the sequencing work at TIGR has been financed through a $125 million deal between HGS and the drugs company SmithKline Beecham. Because of its large investment, SmithKline feels justified in dictating what information should be released, and under what terms.
It has vigorously defended its right to keep 鈥�0.1 per cent鈥� of TIGR鈥檚 data secret. 鈥淭hese sequences are of exceptional importance to us for drug development,鈥� says George Poste, the chairman of R&D at SmithKline. 鈥淲e want to keep them proprietary.鈥� Poste says that the company is also holding on to ESTs 鈥渢o stymie competitors鈥�. SmithKline is being much more open with its data than some other private gene sequencing companies, Poste argues. But he admits that SmithKline and HGS have also developed a private database containing 700 000 ESTs.
Until recently, most work on 鈥渕ining鈥� the genetic information in the human genome was carried our with public money and the results were available to all. But since companies have cottoned on to the huge potential rewards of gene sequencing, the flow of published data has slowed. HGS has been severely criticised for imposing strict conditions on academics who want access to its databases.
Graham Cameron, head of information at the Cambridge-based European Bioinformatics Institute, warns that science will suffer if DNA sequencing continues behind closed doors. In their work, microbiologists rely on being able to compare their own DNA sequences with those in large DNA libraries. If library doors are locked, the functions of many genes will remain a mystery. 鈥淚f commercial research overshadows the public sector,鈥� says Cameron, 鈥渋t will be detrimental to progress.鈥�