A LEGAL row is threatening the future of an international gene database. The
hospital which hosts the database is suing a former employee, claiming he has
stolen the domain name that provides access to the information.
The Genome Database contains mapping information for human genes. It was
established at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1990 and
funded by the US Department of Energy. When the DOE stopped funding the database
in 1998, Johns Hopkins researcher Jamie Cuticchia recruited The Hospital for
Sick Children in Toronto to host it. The hospital also hired Cuticchia to start
up and run its new bioinformatics centre.
The hospital fired Cuticchia earlier this month, alleging that he was trying
to set up a commercial venture after illegally transferring the domain name
gdb.org to a company in Baltimore. Last week the hospital filed a lawsuit
against Cuticchia to have the domain name returned. Most researchers who use the
database access it through the domain name. 鈥淲e鈥檙e asking the courts to
immediately transfer that asset back to the hospital,鈥� says Cyndy DeGiusti, a
spokeswoman for the hospital.
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But Cuticchia says he was trying to protect the database by putting it under
the control of a non-profit corporation. He says that the hospital agreed to do
this when he joined. When the hospital abandoned the idea, he went ahead and
helped create the corporation, then transferred the domain name to it.
It鈥檚 not clear if either side can seize complete control of the database. The
primary copy is physically stored on computers at The Hospital for Sick
Children, and the domain gdb.org still accesses those computers. But the
database is managed remotely by Conover Talbot, a research associate at Hopkins.
Talbot is also the director of the non-profit organisation which now owns the
gdb.org name.
Cutichia is confident that the hospital will lose its legal challenge for the
domain name. 鈥淸The Genome Database] is a project I鈥檝e been working on since
1992,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he US government spent $40 million developing it.
They鈥檙e not going to let it be seized by a Canadian hospital.鈥�