NEW YORK, Feb 9 – Celera will make its human genome sequence data available on its website on Monday and will publish its paper on the genome in Science on February 16, an announcement posted at www.celera.com said.
The data and the paper will for the first time give the general public the opportunity to compare the information generated from the private and the government-sponsored sequencing efforts.
But, while this might help to end the ongoing feud over who employed the better method for sequencing the genome, tempers are likely to flare over the terms Celera is expected to impose on scientists wishing to use its data.
While the Human Genome Project abides by the standard practice of making all of its data available through GenBank, Celera, which used the public data in its sequencing efforts, is planning to put restrictions on scientists wishing to access the data.
Celera previously said that academic researchers who want to download more than one megabase of Celera’s data would have to consent to a special material transfer agreement not to redistribute the data. Commercial users will also be able to access this data, as long as they sign a material transfer agreement not to commercialize the results or redistribute the sequence.
Celera has not yet released the actual agreement, but a number of scientists in the academic sector have already voiced their concerns about the negative impact any limitations would have on scientific research.