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7 months ago
balajir24.smc
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Hello everyone,I am working on the development of chloroplast genome resources for medicinal plant groups to identify species-specific DNA barcodes for species identification and authentication of herbal products. In this context, I initially checked the availability of chloroplast genomes in NCBI. I noted that SRA data is available in NCBI for 10 plants, submitted by authors for whole genome sequencing purposes.My question is: Can I use the same SRA data for those particular plant species, assemble the chloroplast genomes, and publish the results myself?If it is ethically sound, I would not need to generate the whole genome sequencing data again for the same species.
It would be good practice to let the submitter's know of one's intention to use/publish as a professional courtesy. People release the data to make it immediately available but may retain the first-dibs on publishing.
I don't think there are any tacit rights, "first dibs," or ethical concerns. In my view there is also absolutely no requirement to let someone know you will use their data or to implicitly or explicitly "ask permission".
In the vast majority of cases, taxpayers supported that effort and the scientists were paid to do the work to benefit everyone else. Publishing is exactly that: putting the data out there for others to use.
The point of publishing the data is not just to verify the results.
While reproducibility may be one reason, it alone would never warrant the massive costs associated with data publishing and storage.
If you manage to publish something using existing data, you are rewarding the original creators of the data with a citation.
Legally perhaps not but this has been the accepted principle for a while: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bermuda_Principles
The above is a different scenario agreed upon during the Human Genome Project where data was released 24h after generation and not as part of a publication
I don't think this is much of an argument, as we reward by citations any quality work by others. That goes whether we used their data in our own research or not. I agree with your argument that publicly funded work should be publicly available, but why not acknowledge those who obtained that funding and performed the work? By this I mean acknowledge them beyond giving them a citation.
I would definitely let the original authors know once the paper is ready for submission. I would even send them a preprint and ask for comments (but not ask for permission). It is a sign of respect and gratitude for generating the data. Other than that, and assuming their work on nuclear genome was publicly funded and was published, I don't think there are any remaining dibs to be claimed.