repositories to share cultures is not uniform; many scientists maintain and distribute cultures from in-house collections. To the extent that there are multiple communities of life scientists rather than a single community, those disciplines have the ultimate responsibility to develop and implement specific standards that extend from the general principles and standards identified in this report. Although the focus of this report is on the life sciences, the principles and standards considered in the committee’s deliberations are of a fundamental nature, and the committee hopes that its recommendations will be of interest to scientists in general.

The sharing of experimental results and research materials has long been important for the advancement of science and technology. For many years, a spirit of free and open sharing seemingly prevailed among life scientists. However, today’s rapidly evolving research environment is producing some growing pains in the life-sciences community.

Among the common perceived problems are the ignoring or denial of requests for materials or data associated with a publication and long delays in honoring such requests. Increasingly, data and materials that are shared come with restrictions, such as material transfer agreements (MTAs) that limit how the resources may be used. Although in some fields of biology, such as x-ray crystallography, more data are shared than ever before; in other life-science fields, the unrestricted, unfettered sharing of data and materials, including those related to published research, is thought to be less common than it was some 20 years ago. Although quantitative evidence is difficult to obtain, a recent survey of geneticists and other life scientists at 100 U.S. universities (Campbell et al., 2002) reported that the ideal of free and open sharing is not always being met. Of geneticists who had asked other academic faculty for additional information, data, or materials regarding published research, 47% reported that at least one of their requests had been denied in the preceding 3 years, and 12% of geneticists acknowledged denying a