Geneticists steamed over access to the rice genome

COMMENTARY (*)

Yesterday, the news came out (below) that Syngenta, one of the world's top seed and agrichemical companies, may be withholding its map of the rice genome from a public database while Science magazine publishes the data in a way that allows Syngenta to have full commercial control over it.

NGOs and farmers' groups which examined IPR issues surrounding the mapping of the rice genome last year already came to the conclusion that the public interest is threatened by manouevres of the private sector in this area. (See
http://www.grain.org/publications/asiaipr-en.cfm
). This is because both Monsanto and Syngenta had made it clear that any sharing of "their" rice genome data would be for research purposes only. This means that when you access their data, you recognise their IPRs to any commercial applications. Which is why the corporations are even publishing it. They reveal a partial map to get researchers to use their data for research. And by doing that, researchers cede control of the commercial outputs to the corporations.

We do not agree that this is a "better than nothing" situation, as IRRI -- the world's premier "public" rice research agency, which wants to access the data -- persists in seeing it. That smacks of opportunism and evades the entire problem. The bottom line is that the rice genome should not be subject to claims of intellectual property -- whether the information is for research or for commercial use. The rice plant is not an invention and should not be patented like a handgun -- to hold up other people who want to do research or to save seeds. The diversity of rice, its tremendous genetic wealth down to every fragment that a biotechnologist can break it into, that did not come from Syngenta or Monsanto or from IRRI for that matter.

True public research institutes have a duty to serve the public good. That does not include filling the pockets of chemical companies by caving in to their terms of how science should be conducted. The accountability of public research is under tremendous stress all over the world today. Hiding from the problem by saying "This is how the private sector wants it and we need them" is not a solution. The solution lies in keeping firm to the ground of what public science is supposed to stand for -- and fighting for that. Privatisation of the rice genome -- the blueprint of our most important food crop -- has no place in that picture.

(*) Prepared by GRAIN together with various colleagues working on these issues in Asia.

Nature 416, 111-112 (2002)

GENETICISTS GET STEAMED UP OVER PUBLIC ACCESS TO RICE GENOME

Declan Butler

Twenty top genome researchers have written to the editorial advisers of Science protesting at the way the journal occasionally publishes genome maps without requiring the authors to place the supporting sequence data in public databases.

The letter is signed by such luminaries as Bob Waterston, head of genetics at Washington University in St Louis, Nobel laureate Aaron Klug of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, and Michael Ashburner, former head of the European Bioinformatics Institute at Hinxton near Cambridge. In it they argue that new genome sequences should be made available in public-domain databases in line with what they term "accepted norms of the field".

"There are strong rumours in the field that Science is considering allowing the publication of papers from commercial companies on the rice and mouse genomes, without demanding the submission of the data in GenBank as a condition," their letter says.

Several sources confirm that Science intends to publish a paper by the Swiss-based agricultural biotechnology company Syngenta on its draft of the rice genome. The supporting sequence data will not be deposited in GenBank, the sources say, but will be available free to academic researchers from Syngenta's website, subject to certain restrictions.

Science drew criticism last year when it agreed to publish the draft human genome assembled by Celera Genomics of Rockville, Maryland, despite the company's restrictions on access to the sequence data.

Donald Kennedy, Science's editor-in-chief, declines to comment on the pending paper. "Science is committed to full public access," he says. "But we will consider rare exceptions if the public benefits of removing valuable data and results from trade-secret status clearly exceed the costs to the scientific community of the precedent the exception might create. This was true for the human genome sequence, and for the most important agricultural commodity in the Third World, the case is surely even stronger."

According to several researchers, Science also plans to publish a draft sequence of Oryza sativa L. ssp. indica, the major crop rice cultivar in China, alongside the Syngenta genome. This second rice genome was completed recently by a team led by Huanming Yang, director of the Beijing Genomics Institute, and the supporting sequence data have been deposited in GenBank.

A draft sequence of the rice genome by the agricultural biotechnology company Monsanto, based in St Louis, Missouri, and one by Celera of the mouse genome, are also under preparation, but have not yet been scheduled for publication in any journal.

Syngenta currently makes its data available to a handful of academic groups through special agreements. The publication of Syngenta's rice genome in Science might result in changes to the company's policy, giving more researchers access to the sequence data. But, as the letter demonstrates, researchers remain deeply divided over the terms of such access. "This goes to the heart of what science is all about, the free exchange of ideas, data and reagents," says Bruce Stillman, director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York state. Science should not compromise on making the data freely available, he says.

But Ron Cantrell, director of the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, is more supportive of Science's decision to publish. "You have to ask the question 'is it better not to have any access at all?'," he says, adding that, in his experience, Syngenta and Monsanto have "been very forthcoming" in collaborations with the public sector.

Chris Novak, a spokesman for Syngenta, says that the company hopes to work with the publicly funded International Rice Genome Sequencing Project (IRGSP). The project intends to produce a 'finished' high-quality sequence, as opposed to the drafts, containing many gaps, that are about to be published.

Researchers point out that Science's agreement with Syngenta is not entirely analogous to the one it reached last year with Celera on the human genome. Celera contributed no data to the public Human Genome Project, instead relying on data from the public project to complete its own sequence. In contrast, Syngenta has already contributed significant mapping data to the IRGSP, through a collaboration with Clemson University in South Carolina.

But Syngenta has so far refused to share its raw sequence data with all of the public group -- unlike its rival Monsanto, whose contributions of sequence data are credited with strongly accelerating the public project.

In January, however, Syngenta began talks with the IRGSP and, according to one IRGSP official, has agreed in principle to match the Monsanto agreement. If it does, "all the Syngenta and Monsanto data will be in the public domain by the end of the year", says the official. The likelihood of this happening might be a factor in persuading Science to accept restrictions on the rice data for the time being, observers suggest.

Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2002

GOING FURTHER

Steve Connor, "Geneticists protest at DNA of rice becoming a trade secret", The Independent, London, 18 March 2002.
http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=275756

Helen Briggs, "Rice genome data row", BBC News Online, 18 March 2002.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1879000/18 79346.stm