Gitter, Donna M. --- "The 1000 Genomes Project" [2012] ELECD 136; in Rimmer, Matthew; McLennan, Alison (eds), "Intellectual Property and Emerging Technologies" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: Intellectual Property and Emerging Technologies

Editor(s): Rimmer, Matthew; McLennan, Alison

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849802468

Section: Chapter 6

Section Title: The 1000 Genomes Project

Author(s): Gitter, Donna M.

Number of pages: 18

Extract:

6. The 1000 Genomes Project
Donna M. Gitter

Scientific discourse and progress depend upon the open discussion of ideas
and full disclosure of supporting facts.1 This discussion has traditionally
occurred through the process of publication, which is the primary means by
which scientists achieve recognition for their work.2 Traditionally, research-
ers published papers that combined in one entity both their ideas and the
underlying data. With the advent of large-scale and high-throughput data
analyses, however, the creation of scientific databases replaced the tradi-
tional model. Typically, for such data-intensive projects, funding agencies
require that all relevant data must be made available on a publicly accessible
website at the time of the paper's publication.3
The Human Genome Project (HGP), completed in 2003, demonstrated
to the scientific community that making data broadly available before
publication results in valuable benefits to the public. This is particularly
true where there is a community of scientists who can use the data more
quickly than the data producers themselves, and in ways not originally
anticipated at the outset of the project.4 One successor to the HGP is the
1000 Genomes Project, which provides that project data will be released
quickly, prior to publication, into the public domain.5
While the open access approach of the 1000 Genomes Project is the norm
for large-scale, publicly funded genomic databases, many smaller projects
that likewise produce vast amounts of scientific data nonetheless do not
embrace data sharing. Quite often, researchers ...