Deposition of small sets of human fastqs

Question

[i.sudbery]

Have a dataset with 16 RNA-seq samples from human subjects. This doesn't seem enough to go through the process of submitting to dbGap (for which you need an NiH collaborator).

Our IRB guys tell us that because the samples were cultured as cell lines and then manipulated in culture, they no longer count as human tissue according to the UK's 2004 Human Tissue Act, and therefore privacy/ethics considerations don't apply (beyond what we've already done for taking the samples), but this doesn't sit well with me.

I thought about submitting the salmon quant files to Mendeley and saying that the raw fastqs are available on request. Does anyone have any other suggestions? Anyone think we should be releasing the fastqs on SRA anyway?

[JC]

Registering as NIH collaborator is not difficult, alternatively, you can upload to EGA.

[i.sudbery]

Apparently the EGA will only take the data if the consent specially says the data cannot be made public. This data says neither it can nor it can't. Our ethics guys says the law won't stop us making public, but I feel uncomforatble with it.