The Influenza Sequence Database (ISD) used to be free online until its funding ran out. Now it charges subscriptions. Scientists say it's a critical resource in averting an avian flu pandemic. ISD is run by the U.S. Los Alamos National Laboratory.
US government funding for one of the world's main stores of information on the genetics of flu viruses has ended, potentially jeopardising research on the bird flu virus that experts fear could spark a human flu pandemic....Since November 2004, the database's administrator Catherine Macken has reported on the funding crisis — she estimates it has cost US$2.5 million to develop and maintain the database since it was set up in 1998. Over the past year, the database has tried to move to subscription-based access to support its running costs. Aware that access to the database is vital for flu researchers in poor countries, the database administrators are hoping to collaborate with the private sector to set up 'needs-based' scholarships for non-commercial institutions. Researchers who cannot afford a subscription are being given temporary access while their scholarship applications are processed. The database is one of the most comprehensive collections of genetic information about influenza viruses. By comparing the genetic sequences of flu viruses that are collected regularly across the world with older viral species and strains, scientists can learn about how the virus evolves and moves between countries.
The shift from the database being free to charging for access is "improper," says Girish Kotwal, professor and chair of medical virology at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Terry Besselaar of the Vaccine Preventable Virus Infections Unit at South Africa's National Institute for Communicable Diseases says, however, that he does not think that restricting access to the database will affect vaccine research. He points out that vaccine researchers can obtain virus samples from the World Health Organization.
The database's administrator Catherine Macken would not comment on "sensitive questions" about the situation, and referred SciDev.Net to Allen Morris, the Los Alamos National Laboratory's technology transfer division.
"We are trying to scramble whatever resources are available," Morris told SciDev.Net before adding that he could not provide any more information.
Morris told US-based Time magazine last week that the database "is running on vapour".
(PS: This could shape up into the most dramatic case yet of harm caused by the lack of OA.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/10/2005 08:33:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
