NCI's caBIG Releases Draft of OSS License, Seeks Comments
The Data Sharing and Intellectual Capital Working Group for the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid has posted a draft of its proposed open source licensing guidelines on its website (https://cabig.nci.nih.gov/working_groups/DSIC_SLWG/).
As BioInform reported last month [BioInform 4-18-05], the working group is drafting its own open source software "template" license agreement that is not mandatory, but will act as a default in cases where caBIG developers don't suggest another license for their software.
According to the DSIC working group, one of the key features of the guidelines "is to avoid the imposition of any restrictions by developer Cancer Centers on modifications of caBIG software tools by end users. Thus, there is nothing in the terms of distribution by developer Cancer Centers which would prevent the incorporation of caBIG software tools into proprietary products."
DSIC said that caBIG developers "should be free to offer another license agreement as long as it is consistent with the recommended OSS guidelines."
Comments on the draft license are due by May 31.
NIH Implements Public-Access Publication Policy
The National Institutes of Health said last week that its policy on public access to NIH-funded research, entitled, "Enhancing Public Access to Archived Publications Resulting from NIH-Funded Research," is effective as of May 2.
The policy "requests and strongly encourages" all NIH-funded investigators to make their peer-reviewed final manuscripts available to other researchers and the public through PubMed Central (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov) immediately after the final date of journal publication.
At the time of submission, authors are given the option to release their manuscripts at a later time, up to 12 months after the official date of final publication. NIH said that it "expects that only in limited cases will authors deem it necessary to select the longest delay period."
NIH released outlined the policy in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts on Feb. 3 and in the Federal Register on Feb. 9. These announcements and additional information are available at the NIH Public Access website: http://www.nih.gov/about/publicaccess/.
The policy applies to all research grant and career development award mechanisms, cooperative agreements, contracts, Institutional and Individual Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Awards, as well as NIH intramural research studies. The policy applies to peer-reviewed, original research publications that have been supported in whole or in part with direct costs from NIH, but it does not apply to book chapters, editorials, reviews, or conference proceedings.
NIH requests that authors submit publications resulting from currently funded NIH research projects or previously supported NIH research projects where manuscripts were accepted for publication on or after May 2.
Genetic Alliance BioBank Partners with FGT on IT Infrastructure
The Genetic Alliance BioBank a non-profit alliance building a repository for the standardized collection, storage, and distribution of biological samples and clinical data for research purposes said last week that it has tapped First Genetic Trust to develop an information technology infrastructure for managing its tissue and data banking, and executing clinical therapeutic trials.
FGT's enTrust genetic banking system will be used initially to manage collaborative research programs within and across three disease research foundations: the National Psoriasis Foundation, the Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Foundation, and PXE (pseudoxanthoma elasticum) International.
The participating foundations plan to create central repositories of well-phenotyped patients, with essential genetic and biologic samples. The BioBank will integrate laboratory and clinical trial data, track the status of participant enrollment in research and therapeutic studies, monitor compliance with study protocols, and enable exchange of data among researchers and research laboratories.
Wiley to Distribute GeneBio's Proteomics Training Software
Geneva Bioinformatics said last week that Wiley-VCH will distribute its e-Proxemis web-based proteomics training portal.
Under the terms of the agreement, Wiley-VCH will be the exclusive sales agent outside Japan to market and distribute the portal through its Wiley InterScience platform.
GeneBio said that e-Proxemis is a version of its Proxemis classroom-based training program, which it has offered for three years
India's HCL Technologies Moves into Bioinformatics
Several Indian news services reported last week that HCL Technologies, one of the country's largest IT service firms, has signed an agreement with the Supercomputing Facility for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi to work on genomics and proteomics projects.
The company has also set up a bioinformatics research grid, which 12 research institutes are using to collaborate on research projects.
Solvay Licenses PathArt
Jubilant Biosys said last week that it has issued a license for its PathArt pathway database to Solvay Pharmaceuticals.
"PathArt, in combination with other bioinformatics tools, will facilitate the discovery and validation of potential new targets," said Jaap Venema, head of the Target Biology Unit at Solvay Pharmaceuticals, in a statement. "It will help us to clarify the disregulated pathways and systems in the various disease models which we are studying,"
Entelos and ADA Complete In Silico Diabetes Model
The American Diabetes Association and Entelos said last week that they have completed a computer simulation model of the non-obese diabetic mouse, the primary animal model used to study type 1 diabetes.
The delivery of the Type 1 Diabetes PhysioLab model marks the completion of the first year of a two-year collaboration between ADA and Entelos in the area of type 1 diabetes.
The platform will initially be used by Entelos and academic researchers who are members of ADA's Type 1 Diabetes Scientific Advisory Board, and will later be made available to other academic researchers through the ADA's grant process.
During the second year of the collaboration, the Entelos said that it will conduct in silico research in the NOD mouse platform, add additional biological detail, and create a population of "virtual NOD mice" to study the heterogeneity and uncertainty in the disease's processes.
Spotfire, Accelrys, BioTeam Join SciTegic's ISV Program
SciTegic said last week that Spotfire, Accelrys, and the BioTeam have joined its independent software vendor partner program, under which they will integrate their software products with SciTegic's Pipeline Pilot workflow platform.
Spotfire is developing an interface to launch Pipeline Pilot data processing workflows from within DecisionSite, its visual data analytics application; Accelrys SciTegic's parent company is providing data-processing routines via Pipeline Pilot; and the BioTeam will use Pipeline Pilot as part of its professional services offering.
These companies join six other software vendors that have recently joined the ISV program: Barnard Chemical Information, ChemNavigator, Equbits, Kelaroo, Molecular Networks, and Virtual Chemistry.