The EpiFlu model is similar to the open-source software model, where programmers can use freely available pieces of code from the Web to build or improve their software. (A prime example of a successful open-source project is the Linux operating system.) Under the terms of EpiFlu access, all users agree to share their own data for free, give due credit when using others' data, and work collaboratively.

GISAID's new influenza database was developed independently of SIB and WHO by the Max Planck Institute for Informatics Department of Computational Biology and Applied Algorithmics, along with a3 systems, GmbH, a maker of content management system software. The database features information about nearly 30,000 isolates (or virus samples), including the contents of the original database (which SIB still manages) as well as new findings contributed to GISAID by the veterinary reference laboratories of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Organization for Animal Health.

The GISAID database initially was created in part to address complaints by researchers in developing countries who say a previous data-sharing system run by WHO forced them to give up intellectual property rights to their virus samples when they sent them to WHO. The virus samples would then be used by private pharmaceutical companies to make vaccines that are awarded patents and sold at a profit at prices many poor nations cannot afford, the Associated Press reported in October 2008.

Another impetus for the GISAID information bank came in 2006 when Italian veterinarian and researcher Ilaria Capua revealed that in the case of bird flu, WHO was keeping some crucial information in a private database in Los Alamos, N.M., making it accessible to just 15 laboratories, the Associated Press reported in May 2008.

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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