Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Celera to make genomic data OA

Andrew Pollack, Celera to Quit Selling Genome Information, New York Times, April 27, 2005. (Requires registration.) Excerpt: "Celera Genomics, which raced with the publicly financed Human Genome Project to decipher the human DNA sequence, has decided to abandon the business of selling genetic information. The company said yesterday that it was discontinuing its genome database subscription business and putting the information into the public domain." The article reports that the company will deposit the data in a federally-run database, but does not specify which. Craig Venter, former leader of Celera, is quoted: "Moving the Celera data into the public domain is something I have been strongly in favor of, and I feel it sets a good precedent for companies who are sitting on gene and genome data sets that have little or no commercial value, but would be of great benefit to the scientific community."