http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0053374
On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 4:09 AM, Eric Bennett <er...@pobox.com> wrote: > Scott, > > I'm not sure I understand your last paragraph. Once researchers have had > their data pass peer review (which I interpret as meaning a journal has > accepted it), how often do you think it happens that it does not > immediately get published? > > Just depositing data in the PDB, or posting it on a public web site, is > not "meet[ing] the veracity of peer review". There is something to be said > for giving credit to the first people who have subjected their data to peer > review and had the data pass that step, otherwise people will be tempted to > just post data of dubious quality to stake a public claim before the > quality of the data has been independently checked. In a case where this > initial public non-peer-reviewed posting is of unacceptable data quality, > that would dilute credit granted to another person who later obtained good > data. > > An unfortunate number of problematic structures still sneak through peer > review. Relaxing quality review standards that must be passed before a > scientist gets to claim credit for a discovery is a step backwards IMO. > > Cheers, > Eric > > > > > > On Mar 28, 2013, at 5:06 PM, Scott Pegan wrote: > > Hey everyone, > > Both Mark and Fred make some good points. I totally agree with Nat (beat > me to the send button). Although in an ideal world with all the > advancements in crowd sourcing and electronic media, one might think that > posting data on a bulletin board might be considered marking one's turf and > protect the scientist place in that pathway towards discoveries. > Regrettably, the current reality doesn't' support this case. As structural > biologists, we are still in the mode of first to publish gets the bulk of > the glory and potentially future funding on the topic. > > For instance, when I was in graduate school, the lab I was in had KcsA > crystals at the same time as a couple of competing groups. Several groups > including the one I belong to had initial diffraction data. One group was > able to solve KcsA, the first K channel trans-membrane protein structure, > first. That group was led by Roderick Mackinnon, now a Noble Laureate > partly because of this work. Now imagine if one of Mackinnon's student > would have put up the web their initial diffraction data and another group > would have used it to assist in their interpretation of their own data and > either solved the structure before Mackinnon, or at least published it > prior. Even if they acknowledged Mackinnion for the assistance of his data > (as they should), Mackinnion and the other scientists in his lab would > likely not have received the broad acclaim that they received and justly > deserved. Also, ask Rosalind Franklin how data sharing worked out for her. > > Times haven't changed that much since ~10 years ago. Actually, as many > have mentioned, things have potentially gotten worse. Worse in the respect > that the scientific impact of structure is increasingly largely tide to the > biochemical/biological studies that accompany the structure. In other > words, the discoveries based on the insights the structure provides. > Understandably, this increasing emphasis on follow up experiments to get > into high impact journals in many cases increases the time between solving > the structure and publishing it. During this gap, the group who solved the > structure first is vulnerable to being scoped. Once scoped unless the > interpretation of the structure and the conclusion of the follow up > experiments are largely and justifiably divergent from the initial > publications, there is usually a significant difficulty getting the article > published in a top tier journal. Many might argue that they deposited it > first, but I haven't seen anyone win that argument either. Because follow > up articles will cite the publication describing the structure, not the PDB > entry. > > Naturally, many could and should argue that this isn't they way it should > be. We could rapidly move science ahead in many cases if research groups > were entirely transparent and made available their discovers as soon as > they could meet the veracity of peer-review. However, this is not the > current reality or model we operate in. So, until this changes, one might > be cautious about tipping your competition off whether they be another > structural biology group looking to publish their already solved structure, > or biology group that could use insights gathered by your structure > information for a publication that might limit your own ability to publish. > Fortunately, for Tom his structure sounds like it is only important to a > pretty specific scientific question that many folks might not be working on > exactly. > > Scott > > > -- ****************************************************** Toufic El Arnaout Trinity Biomedical Science Institute (TCD) 152-160 Pearse Street, Dublin 2 ******************************************************
