Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Thursday, June 12, 2008

3 more companies join 1000 Genomes Project

Three Sequencing Companies Join 1000 Genomes Project, press release by the National Human Genome Research Institute, June 11, 2008.
Leaders of the 1000 Genomes Project announced today that three firms that have pioneered development of new sequencing technologies have joined the international effort to build the most detailed map to date of human genetic variation as a tool for medical research. The new participants are: 454 Life Sciences, a Roche company, Branford, Conn.; Applied Biosystems, an Applera Corp. business, Foster City, Calif.; and Illumina Inc., San Diego.

The 1000 Genomes Project, which was announced in January 2008, is an international research consortium that is creating a new map of the human genome that will provide a view of biomedically relevant DNA variations at a resolution unmatched by current resources. ...

Along with their contributions of sequencing capacity, the companies, like all other project participants, have agreed to comply with the open access policies established by the 1000 Genomes Project Steering Committee. Those policies include rapid public release of the data, including project participants having no early access to the data; an intellectual property policy that precludes any participants from controlling the information produced by the project; regular progress reporting; and coordination of scientific publications with the rest of the consortium. ...
Comment. The project's home page says that "data from the 1000 Genomes Project will be made swiftly available to the worldwide scientific community through freely accessible public databases". Is there a formal document outlining the project's "open access policies" referenced in the press release?