Inter-union bioinformatics group report.

The IUBG was established on initiative of the IUPAB in 1998 as an Inter-Union activity addressing issues concerning the availability, maintenance, and free access of biological and biophysical scienti®c data. The availability of sequence data on the human genome and on gene sequences of other organisms, and of structural data on proteins and other bio-macromolecules, is growing rapidly. Combined with the growing impact of these data on applied sciences and medicine with their concomitant commercial interests, concerns have been raised about the proper archiving of such data, its quality control, the guaranteed unrestricted access, and the safeguarding of archival data for future generations. Such primary scienti®c data as sequences and structures must be considered as cultural assets that should be made accessible and kept available for future generations as part of the human heritage. In a way they are comparable to basic scienti®c data such as the physical properties of the elements, or to taxonomic data of biological organisms, which are welldocumented and readily available to the worldwide community of pure and applied scientists. A difference with the `classical' data is that the latter are archived and available in the open literature, which is kept accessible by scienti®c libraries of universities and institutes. National libraries have the specialized task, recognized and supported by the governments of several countries, to safeguard the access of relevant documents for future generations. On the contrary, biodata are presently not published in detail in scienti®c journals, but rather deposited in databases. These databases are maintained by institutions that do not have the support status of national libraries. It is not yet generally recognized at the government level that the archiving of such data needs protection similar to the archiving of literature, and that governments and supranational bodies bear a responsibility to maintain the collections and safeguard their integrity and access into the far future. As the quantity of primary information grows at an exponential rate, its proper archiving and maintenance become more and more a matter of concern. Organisations that maintain archival databases are confronted with an ever-growing work load. Without adequate public funding they may be forced to make selections based on nonscienti®c considerations, relax the strict requirements of quality control, or impose restrictions to access that are detrimental to public availability in a worldwide community. There is also a need for international cooperation of the institutions concerned, and for the de®nition of standards for data treatment and data exchange. Another matter of concern is the national and international legislation on intellectual property rights, which is at present actively discussed. While there is no doubt that the author of a creative process possesses intellectual property rights on the product of his creative process, and that such rights need protection by law, there is also no doubt that primary biological data per se can never become the subject of intellectual property rights, and their 'fair use' for scienti®c and educational purposes must not be impeded by regulations. Careful distinction must be made between the data themselves and the added value of the form in which they are presented, or the processes to which they are subjected. The rate of growth of the biological primary data and of the various techniques that are being developed to make use of these data, present challenges to scientists as well as to current university curricula. Not only are the changes fast and the applications novel, but the combination of skills required for managing these data is far from traditional. One must combine aspects of biological or medical sciences with mathematics and informatics in an unprecedented way. Apart from a selected group of specialists, the majority of scientists will be left behind if educational curricula do not quickly adjust to these changes. The IUBG feels that much can be gained by international cooperation in aspects of education, and addresses this topic as well in this report.