NSF PR 00-39 - May 31, 2000
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Valuable Arabidopsis Data Released Through Unique
Public-Private Partnership
New data that will allow researchers to isolate essentially
any gene in Arabidopsis, a mustard plant that
serves as a model organism for scientists worldwide--and
will greatly facilitate the goal of understanding
the function of every gene in Arabidopsis within
the next 10 years--have just been released by The
Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR). The data
set represents a qualitative leap in genetics for
Arabidopsis. The data release also represents
a new paradigm in public-private information sharing
for the genomic study of model organisms. TAIR is
funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
TAIR, a collaboration between the National Center for
Genome Resources (NCGR) and the Department of Plant
Biology at the Carnegie Institution of Washington
(CIW), now offers a comprehensive list of more than
39,000 polymorphisms via a Web site, http://www.arabidopsis.org/cereon.
These data were discovered by Cereon Genomics, LLC,
which has taken a groundbreaking step in making privately
owned data available to the public sector. If followed
by others, this will revolutionize the sharing of
biological data in the post-genomic era.
"The partnership between TAIR and Cereon could well
set the standard for future models of academic access
to important industrial datasets," said Paul Gilna,
program director in NSF's biological database and
informatics program.
Polymorphisms between subspecies of an organism are
typically used to map genes on a chromosome and eventually
isolate the gene to study its function.
"This is an incredible resource," said Chris Somerville,
director of plant biology at Carnegie. "No other organism
has such a rich collection of polymorphisms accessible
to the academic and nonprofit sector. These data will
greatly facilitate the isolation of genes by map-based
cloning, among other goals."
"The true value lies in integration," said Bruno Sobral,
vice-president of scientific programs at NCGR. "When
the public and private data are combined, we have
a better road map for getting to the actual genes,
which is what we all want."
Researchers in the academic and nonprofit sector can
access the new Arabidopsis data by registering
at http://www.arabidopsis.org/cereon
and agreeing to the terms of access by Cereon. The
agreement is based on the premise that the Cereon
information cannot be used in a commercial setting
(i.e. selling parts of the database for profit). It
is not a restriction on any results gained from the
use of the information (i.e. if the data lead to the
discovery of a gene, the restriction does not apply
to the gene). Registered users will get a free license
and can publish up to 20 polymorphisms without obligation
to Cereon but cannot sell or redistribute the data.
Other potential users should contact Cereon by email
at athal@cereon.com
for a commercial license.
For more information see: http://www.arabidopsis.org/cereon
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fundamental research and education across all fields
of science and engineering, with an annual budget
of about $4 billion. NSF funds reach all 50 states,
through grants to about 1,600 universities and institutions
nationwide. Each year, NSF receives about 30,000 competitive
requests for funding, and makes about 10,000 new funding
awards.
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