NIH's Genomic Data Sharing Policy: Timing and Tradeoffs

Abstract

In August 2014, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued a new Genomic Data Sharing (GDS) policy governing the use and release of data generated by NIH-funded genomic studies. The GDS policy, which was five years in the making, will apply to all grant submissions made after January 25, 2015. And while it outwardly preserves the tradition of rapid genomic data release established early in the Human Genome Project (HGP), it makes significant changes to the terms on which genomic data is submitted and released. These changes could fundamentally alter the practice and underlying assumptions of genomic data sharing.

Keywords: genomic, data sharing, data release, NIH, Genbank, dbGaP, patent, latency, GDS, GWAS