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A leading scientist in the field of genetic sequencing is calling on publicly funded U.S. researchers and research organizations to throw open their collections of H5N1 avian flu viruses to allow others to work toward lessening the pandemic threat the virus poses.

Steven Salzburg wants the U.S. Centers for Disease Control as well as researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health to place their virus sequence data in open-access databanks on an as-processed basis. He hopes such a move would entice scientists elsewhere, as well as governments in H5N1-afflicted countries, to end a pattern of virus hoarding many believe is undermining the world's ability to battle H5N1.

“I think what ought to happen is that the U.S., starting with people funded by NIH and the CDC itself ought to start releasing all of their data and all of their samples — and lead by example,” says Dr. Salzberg, director of the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at the University of Maryland.

“Because one complaint I've hear from other scientists in other countries is: ‘Hey, the CDC in the U.S. doesn't release all their data. So why should we?' And that's a very legitimate complaint.”

Infectious disease expert Dr. Michael Osterholm sees the logic in Dr. Salzberg's appeal.

“I think that's fair. I think they should,” says Dr. sterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

“If we don't have timely and comprehensive laboratory analysis and reporting of isolates, then we're in trouble.”

Dr. Salzberg was involved in the historic human genome sequencing effort as well as the teams which sequenced the first plant genome, Arabidopsis (mustard weed) and the parasite that causes malaria. Most recently, he has been working on an NIH-funded project that is sequencing vast numbers of human flu viruses.

He is adding his voice to a campaign started by Dr. Ilaria Capua. An Italian influenza researcher, Dr. Capua is challenging the current system which gives a small network of prominent flu labs preferential access to data by virtue of the fact they do testing and surveillance for the World Health Organization.

These labs register their findings in a secure database so that they and the WHO can track changes in H5N1 viruses. But those virus sequences are slow to trickle out to the rest of the research world. (Typically, scientists only post data publicly when they publish findings in a journal, a process that can take months or more.)

Dr. Capua was offered a chance to join the 15 labs with access to the WHO's secure database after she sequenced H5N1 bird viruses from Nigeria and Italy, according to a recent article in the journal Science. She turned down the offer, choosing instead to place her sequence data in the open access database Genbank.

Limiting who can work on the WHO data isn't just hindering science's ability to crack the mysteries of H5N1's incredible virulence, critics say. It also hampers efforts by countries outside the WHO network to keep their H5N1 diagnostic tests up to date.

Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory has no access to the database, notes Scientific Director Dr. Frank Plummer. So if it wanted to update the test it uses to look for H5N1 in Canada, using viruses from the recent human cases in Turkey or Iraq as a model, it could not do so.

While Turkey and Iraq allowed human specimens to be sent to a WHO collaborating lab for confirmatory testing, neither country has yet agreed to let WHO release the sequence data for their human cases to scientists outside the secure database.

“It limits our ability to make sure we've got the right diagnostic tests. It inhibits research,” says Dr. Plummer, who is no fan of the system.

“I think there needs to be as much openness as possible. This is information that's to the global public-health good. And it certainly should not be hoarded.”

Some countries refuse to export viruses or share very few, concerned that foreign scientists will scoop up the publishing glory for studying their problem. Or they may justly fear that foreign drug companies will use their viruses to make a pandemic flu vaccine their citizens won't be able to purchase.

China in particular has been slow to share, blocking exports of poultry viruses for more than a year and only recently providing two human isolates to the WHO network.

Dr. Salzberg insists that's unlikely to change until Western scientists start sharing, too.

“I don't think we're going to get the Chinese to start releasing samples and data until U.S. scientists can do it themselves — before publication, with no restrictions,” he says.

The WHO is hearing the growing chorus of complaints. But to some degree its hands are tied.

The viruses belong to the countries where they were collected. WHO cannot force them to share. And it doesn't own — or pay — its collaborating labs, which are doing huge amounts of science for the global good.

“We can't open that database without having permission from the other collaborating centres and member states. That permission hasn't been provided,” says WHO spokesperson Maria Cheng.

“There are some members of the lab network that balk at sharing data. We can't speak for them and speculate why,” adds Ms. Cheng, who would not identify the holdouts.

“We have to recognize that these collaborating centres are not financed by WHO. So we don't have any authority over them. But they are providing a very valuable public-health service and they're not getting paid explicitly for that.”

While that is undeniable, others argue that scientists in these centres are being more than compensated by first — and often exclusive — crack at data in a research field now so white hot that a paper about an interesting change in one virus would be virtually guaranteed publication in a top-flight journal.

A spokesperson for the CDC said that agency — one of the world's pre-eminent centres for influenza research — wants to work toward a solution that would allow more open and rapid sharing of data.

“We're committed to trying to continue to work on this very issue. We totally understand the importance of quickly sharing this information, especially when it could benefit public health,” Tom Skinner says.

“We also appreciate the complexity of the issues involved in coming up with a system that takes into account the balances of posting as quickly as possible, working with the host nations where these isolates come from, taking into consideration the importance of scientists being able to publish in peer review journals.

“There are a lot of issues that have to be worked through to come up with a system that is best for everyone involved.”

Earl Brown, a University of Ottawa virologist who specializes in influenza evolution, understands the complexity of striking a balance. On the one hand, he believes labs paid by governments to do surveillance and sequencing should not be able to sit on data.

“CDC and places like that — once they get a sequence in and once they've checked their errors, it should go out by virtue that they're providing a service to the country,” he says.

But as a researcher governed by the “publish or perish” rules of academia, Dr. Brown can understand the temptation to protect data from bigger labs until publication is secured.

“It's a very competitive enterprise,” he says ruefully.

“Science is a great ideal but it's done by humans who are driven by the standard things. Like glory. Women. The rest of it.”