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Celera Opens Up DNA Database

Posted by timothy on from the time-to-meet-the-ceo dept.

greenplato writes "Thirty billion base pairs from the sequences of humans, mice, and rats that were available only by subscription to Celera's DNA database are being put into the public domain. Celera will donate this information to a 'federally run database,' presumably GenBank. Francis Collins, head of the National Human Genome Research Institute, notes that 'data just wants to be public.' Stories in BusinessWeek and The New York Times."

8 of 181 comments (clear)

  1. Curious by Sparr0 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I wonder why something like this isnt inherently unprotectable, like the contents of the phone book. A DNA sequence is, after all, simply a record of an existing state of things, NOT an original work (barring genetic engineering, which this isnt). If I take your phonenumber/basepair book and reproduce it... have I broken any laws (apparently the answers are no and yes, in that order)? The precedent for this has existed for decades.

    1. Re:Curious by John+Hasler · · Score: 2, Interesting

      > I wonder why something like this isnt inherently
      > unprotectable

      The data itself was never protected in any way: you've always been free to read your own DNA. The database that Celera owned was protected as a trade secret. You could only look at it after signing a contract in which you agreed not to disclose what you saw.

      --
      Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
  2. Free data - or unable to sell it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I work for a biotech company with a database which we've been trying to sell subscriptions to for a few years. The prevailing experience with trying to sell the database is that people are very reluctant to shell out the cash to access the data.

    I think this is a symptom of trying to sell data to academic institutions. The problems with selling to academic institutions are two-fold; Firstly the universities don't have the cold hard cash to spend on the databases, so any cost over free is too expensive. Secondly, there is the free/open culture within universities that almost punishes commercial ventures for trying to build a business around adding some kind of value to the data (such as convenience or quality of data).

    Because of the lack of sales for this database, we're considering handing the data over to a large government body so that they can maintain it, because the company can't simply afford to maintain the database - it costs a lot of money to hire talented people to do database curation.

    So when Celera say that "data wants to be free", I think they mean "We'd sell you this data to try and recoup our investment, but we're resigned to the fact that you're not going to buy it".

  3. Finally... by nxtr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Now what do I do with it?

  4. The human genome project by $exyNerdie · · Score: 3, Interesting


    Excellent PBS video on race between government and Celera to crack the human genome:

    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/genome/program.html

    Mirrors please..

  5. Here we go... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    ..with the typical /. groupthink. Everyone around her would like to think that the genome sequence should be free to the public. And liken this to open source software. I don't disagree with this. However, we must remember that one can sell a service. An annotated database of the Genome sequence is a service. Although it doesn't contain unique "created" data, annotation and organization is a huge undertaking in itself. Yes, it's horrible that a company invested money and resources towards capitalizing on something that everyone should own. But it's a fact of life and we have the publicly funded Human Genome project that is open to researchers already and obtained in a different manner than the private one.

  6. Does anyone remember... by thisisauniqueid · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Does anyone remember the story of the hacker that actually wrote the code that cracked the genome sequencing problem? He is the unsung hero of this whole private vs. public debacle. He wrote a 10,000 line C program to do the sequencing in "rafts" and "contigs" in the space of a few days -- and had to ice his wrists from all the work... it was because of his brilliant work that the race went from being a 20-year thing to a 3-year thing, and of course nobody knows his name. (And I've forgotten it.)

  7. Re:I don't think it wants to be free. by h4rm0ny · · Score: 3, Interesting


    Considering the millions of dollars that Celera invested in gene sequencing, it should at least have the opportunity to make back that money.

    If he were creating something new then perhaps, but it was just a land grab. The DNA was there and they tried to patent as much of it as possible. It reminds me of the Eddie Izzard skit when the Europeans claim America and the Indians say, "but it's here, you know, we're using it, how can it be yours?" And the Europeans say, "but ah, have you got a flag?"

    Replace flag with patent. You might as well say that the Spaniards spent a lot of money colonizing Peru so they deserved all the gold. This is DNA! It belongs to no individual or corporation. I want access to my source code for whatever purposes I choose.

    --

    Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.