International agreements and the plant genetics research community: A guide to practice.

Plant genetic resources (PGR), including collections held in national and international gene banks, provide access to a wide array of genetic diversity and are critical to genomics research, conservation efforts, and applied breeding. Yet, there is a general lack of awareness in the research community about the rules and treaties that govern the use of PGR, about access and benefit sharing obligations contained in international treaties and/or national laws, and about how best to comply with potentially applicable requirements. This article provides a brief history and overview of three key international agreements, namely the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Nagoya Protocol, and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, which collectively address responsibilities and obligations related to the use of much of the world's PGR. By highlighting the coverage and key considerations of each agreement, the article provides a guide for those who use PGR in plant genetics research to better understand when and how international agreements apply, and-where the rules are unclear-to suggest best practices for compliance with existing agreements.

Correction to: Reflections on FDA Draft Guidance for Products Containing Nanomaterials: Is the Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) a Suitable Pathway for Nanomedicines?

In the published article the given name and the family name for each author is listed in the incorrect order and therefore cited incorrectly. The correct order (given name followed by family name) of names is listed above.

Plant genetic resources for food and agriculture: opportunities and challenges emerging from the science and information technology revolution.

Contents Summary 1407 I. Introduction 1408 II. Technological advances and their utility for gene banks and breeding, and longer-term contributions to SDGs 1408 III. The challenges that must be overcome to realise emerging R&D opportunities 1410 IV. Renewed governance structures for PGR (and related big data) 1413 V. Access and benefit sharing and big data 1416 VI. Conclusion 1417 Acknowledgements 1417 ORCID 1417 References 1417 SUMMARY: Over the last decade, there has been an ongoing revolution in the exploration, manipulation and synthesis of biological systems, through the development of new technologies that generate, analyse and exploit big data. Users of Plant Genetic Resources (PGR) can potentially leverage these capacities to significantly increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their efforts to conserve, discover and utilise novel qualities in PGR, and help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This review advances the discussion on these emerging opportunities and discusses how taking advantage of them will require data integration and synthesis across disciplinary, organisational and international boundaries, and the formation of multi-disciplinary, international partnerships. We explore some of the institutional and policy challenges that these efforts will face, particularly how these new technologies may influence the structure and role of research for sustainable development, ownership of resources, and access and benefit sharing. We discuss potential responses to political and institutional challenges, ranging from options for enhanced structure and governance of research discovery platforms to internationally brokered benefit-sharing agreements, and identify a set of broad principles that could guide the global community as it seeks or considers solutions.

A response to Rome: lessons from pre- and post-publication data-sharing in the C. elegans research community.

BACKGROUND: In recent years numerous studies have undertaken to measure the impact of patents, material transfer agreements, data-withholding and commercialization pressures on biomedical researchers. Of particular concern is the theory that such pressures may have negative effects on academic and other upstream researchers. In response to these concerns, commentators in some research communities have called for an increased level of access to, and sharing of, data and research materials. We have been studying how data and materials are shared in the community of researchers who use the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) as a model organism for biological research. Specifically, we conducted a textual analysis of academic articles referencing C. elegans, reviewed C. elegans repository request lists, scanned patents that reference C. elegans and conducted a broad survey of C. elegans researchers. Of particular importance in our research was the role of the C. elegans Gene Knockout Consortium in the facilitation of sharing in this community. RESULTS: Our research suggests that a culture of sharing exists within the C. elegans research community. Furthermore, our research provides insight into how this sharing operates and the role of the culture that underpins it. CONCLUSIONS: The greater scientific community is likely to benefit from understanding the factors that motivate C. elegans researchers to share. In this sense, our research is a 'response' to calls for a greater amount of sharing in other research communities, such as the mouse community, specifically, the call for increased investment and support of centralized resource sharing infrastructure, grant-based funding of data-sharing, clarity of third party recommendations regarding sharing, third party insistence of post-publication data sharing, a decrease in patenting and restrictive material transfer agreements, and increased attribution and reward.