A row appears to have broken out between the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (GISAID) and the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB) over the EpiFlu virus sequence sharing database – one that has been widely praised by researchers for its contribution to rapid sharing of sequences during the current H1N1 pandemic.
Visitors to the Epiflu database homepage part of the GISAID web site this afternoon were met with this cryptic message, signed by “The EpiFlu Database team of the SIB”:
“Due to contractual and legal issues the EpiFlu Database, developed by the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, is currently unavailable via GISAID. However registered users can continue to work as usual under the strict respect of the conditions set in the GISAID access agreement which the SIB supports. Moreover, the SIB remains totally committed to this very important initiative.
To continue to use the database please click on ”https://epiflu.vital-it.ch/GISAID">this link, where you will be prompted with a new password and you will be able to directly reach the EpiFlu Database. If you have any problems with this please contact epifludb@isb-sib.ch"
In December 2006, GISAID entered into an agreement with the SIB: “In order to contribute to the worldwide efforts against the spread of avian flu the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (GISAID) has entered into an agreement with the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB) to lead a consortium that will develop a database on influenza viruses.”
GISAID itself was launched in August 2006 to improve sharing of sequences of human cases of bird flu which previously had often been restricted to a closed network of WHO laboratories. Many researchers say it has proved its mettle in the current H1N1 pandemic with sequences being rapidly shared, and scientists taking to its suite of user-friendly tools. The launch was via a letter to Nature signed by some 70 flu scientists, including several Nobel laureates, which outlined the terms of the agreement – a sort of open source licence requiring users of the database to agree to various rules on attributing credit etc.
A GISAID scientific council was formed including many prominent international flu scientists. See a Nature news article on this at the time.
Amos Bairoch, former head of SwissProt at SIB for over two decades until 1 July this year – see here — says that as a member of GISAID’ scientific council, he has had no issues with “GISAID’s scientific direction.” He said he was not authorized to speak on behalf of SIB on the legal and contractual aspects.
Ron Appel, head of SIB, declined to comment because of the “legal issues,” adding though that he was “committed to this initiative because we think it is very important for public health,” and would seek to continue to allow users access to work with the database.
One GISAID official also declined to comment given legal issues, but contested SIB’s making the database no longer available via GISAID.
I’ll be looking into all this further, but thought I’d blog it now.
PS. I don’t know if this is related or not; when I checked a few minutes ago, after logging in to GISAID, the home page displays this notice: “For technical reasons our EpiFlu database is temporarily unavailable. We are working on resolving these issues as quickly as possible. In the meantime our data for novel influenza A/H1N1 viruses (and other influenza viruses may be accessed at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genomes/FLU/SwineFlu.html “”
(I still have a former session of the Epiflu database open in another window, which seems to be still refreshing fine — including the H1N1 sequence page.)