Data sharing in the life sciences: How far we have come and where we must go

Abstract

Data sharing has the benefits of reducing duplications in the grant awarding process, increasing the reproducibility of research results, speeding up research, and fostering new businesses. The Human Genome Project, an international research project that set out to determine the DNA sequence of the human genome, was a milestone in the history of data sharing in the life sciences. This article gives an overview of the data sharing activities that have been carried out by the National Bioscience Database Center, Japan Science and Technology Agency. It will highlight on Japan's data sharing policy in comparison with that of the United States and Europe, and on the three conditions that must be fulfilled for data to be truly reusable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]