BIND database runs out of funding
I only noticed today that BIND as ran out of funding. They say so on the home page and there are links to several paper regarding the issue of sustainable database funding (has of 16 November 2005).
From the frontpage of BIND:
"Finally, I would like to reiterate my conviction that public databases are essential requirements for the future of life sciences research. The question arises will these be free or will they require a subscription. Should BIND/Blueprint be sustained as a public-funded open-access database and service provider? "
I am not sure actually what would be a good way out for BIND. They could try to charge institutional access like the Faculty1000 or ISI. The other possibility would be to try to secure support from a place like NCBI or EBI. The problem is that there are several other databases available that do the same thing (MINT,DIP,GRID, IntAct,etc) so why should we pay for this service ? Why don't the protein-interaction databases fuse for example? I now that they agreed to share the data in the same format, so maybe there is not enough space for so many different databases developing new tools. The question is probably more of the curation effort then. Who should pay for the curation effort ? The users of the databases? The major institutions ? The journals (they could at least force the authors to submit interaction data directly) ?
There is also a link to the blog of Christopher Hogue called BioImplement. He expresses his views of the problem.
Monday, November 21, 2005
Posted by Pedro Beltrão at 9:08 PM
1 comments:
Pedro,
Thanks for noticing.
Your ideas are sound, fusing early would have been a lot better (as we attempted with the other players) than the situation we are in now.
BIND had funding for about 35 curators, when it shut down. You may note throughout 2003-05 it was the only database growing substantially, and exponentially.
MINT, DIP, IntAct, GRID collectively have only about 5-6 curators between them, and none of these have current major peer-reviewed funding for continued operations.
Fusing together a bunch of underfunded efforts won't do the trick, I'm afraid. Some funder(s) has to come through with an RFP for an international effort.
NCBI says they only support initiatives developed in-house.
EBI likewise, but it has more trouble with long-term support for databases than NCBI, and IntAct apparently doesn't have substantial new funding either.
Major model organism databases like MGI command about $4M US for their efforts. Interaction databases, separately or collectively require a similar amount of operating funds.
If the NIH or Wellcome Trust won't commit to it, no one else in the funding community will follow suit.
The ongoing collection of exponentially growing numbers of experimental interactions will just simply fall through the cracks.
Hope that clarifies the problem.
Christopher Hogue
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