A database designed to help researchers worldwide develop vaccines for avian and seasonal influenza viruses, not to mention the prolific H1N1 "swine flu," is now at the center of an ugly rift between its co-creators. Both the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (GISAID) Foundation that initiated the effort and the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB) that built the actual influenza gene sequence "EpiFlu" database claim ownership of the project, thanks to legal and financial entanglements that the courts will now have to sort through.

For now, the spat has led to the existence of two EpiFlu databases (one launched Monday by the Washington, D.C.–based GISAID Foundation and the other managed by SIB), a situation that could undermine the goal of building a central repository to improve the sharing of data on influenza.

GISAID announced plans to create the original EpiFlu database following the 2006 H5N1 avian influenza outbreak as a way of providing researchers with quick access to gene sequence data. The foundation then contracted SIB to do the programming required to build the actual database.

Scientists in more than 150 countries have used the GISAID EpiFlu database as a free source of public information-sharing about influenza gene sequences since it went online in May 2008. Trouble surfaced for GISAID on July 27, however, when SIB cut off access to the EpiFlu data from the GISAID.org site. Citing "contractual and legal issues," SIB redirected all registered users to an SIB Web site for access to the information.

"SIB disconnected from our portal and told the researchers to connect directly to SIB," says a GISAID Foundation board member who asked not to be identified due an ongoing court case with SIB in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and an arbitration proceeding in Geneva, Switzerland.

SIB director Ron Appel said in a statement that GISAID had not paid his organization in full for its work and that, under Swiss law, a default on payment renders a contract null and void, giving SIB the rights to the database it built.

The GISAID Foundation disputes this claim, saying SIB had been paid for its work by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Swiss government. SIB had "no right to do so or to operate the EpiFlu database on its own," according to the foundation board member.

Biotech companies such as Alphavax in Research Triangle Park, N.C., and Novavax, Inc., in Rockville, Md., rely on information contained in the EpiFlu database to help them develop prototype influenza vaccines without the need to wait for the CDC to release a virus reference strain, something that can take several weeks following an outbreak. Their approach promises to allow them to make vaccines rapidly and in high volume, compared with the more conventional chicken egg–based approach.

1 Comments

1. 1. jctong 01:51 PM 10/22/09

   Dear Sir, since you have last reported it became apparent that the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics miserably failed in their attempt to seize and take control over the GISAID database. They got apparently caught red-handed by mischaracterizing some sort of a financial dispute and promptly got what they deserved, when scientists refused to deposit any of their data on the SIB operated website (now ironically called the OpenFlu database). Even today SIB continues to act unlike any serious scientific institution would, as they solicit the confidential usernames and passwords from unsuspecting GISAID users on their site. Swiss laws must be very different from those in other countries.
   It is well known that governments here in Asia and the community of researchers at large are extremely committed to the GISAID initiative and moreover its independence from any single institution. As luck would have it, GISAID’s new EpiFlu Database is now even emerging to be superior over the Swiss attempt, thanks to the effort both the community and the Max Planck Institute invested.
   The fact that the German government announced that it is providing a permanent home for the database could not have been a better signal to the world that initiatives such as GISAID are the kind of private/public partnerships that will shape the future of research. This gives us scientists a platform to truly collaborate in a transparent manner, without the bureaucracy and clumsiness of international governmental organizations. Hats up to GISAID and to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
   Joo Chuan Tong
   Singapore
   

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