An international team of researchers recently published a report on genomic data found in swabs taken from the market in Wuhan, China, that has been linked to the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. The data was gathered by a separate team in China and hosted on the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (GISAID). The GISAID revoked access to the authors of the report as they failed to collaborate with the data generators, and the Chinese CDC team submitted a complaint, stating that the Zenodo report authors did not communicate with them properly. After the situation sparked a debate in the research community, GISAID reinstated access to the Zenodo authors within 24 hours and is reviewing the situation. The debate arose as the Zenodo report was posted before the data owners' work was published in a journal, possibly deterring data generators from sharing information for fear of being scooped.
The Situation
On 20 March, an international team of researchers posted a headline-grabbing online report describing genomic data found in swabs taken from the market in Wuhan, China, that has been linked to the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. The data were gathered by a separate team in China and hosted on the major online database, the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (GISAID). Hours later, GISAID temporarily revoked the authors’ access, claiming that they had not done enough to protect the interests of the team in China—the ‘data generators’—and had violated its rules.
The Zenodo Report
The Zenodo report, which has not been peer-reviewed, pointed to raccoon dogs and other animal species as possible sources of the spillover of SARS-CoV-2 into humans. The same data analyzed in the report had formed the basis of a preprint posted on Research Square in February 2022 by researchers at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) in Beijing, who generated the data. In March 2023, the Zenodo report authors noticed that the data were publicly available on GISAID and downloaded them, but then the data disappeared from public view following a request from the data generators.
GISAID's Actions
GISAID’s rules require researchers to “make best efforts to collaborate” with data generators and involve them in their analyses. In a public statement on 21 March, GISAID said that it had reached out to the the China CDC and established that the authors of the Zenodo report had not fulfilled this requirement and had communicated “only their intent to publish the data generator’s data.” GISAID also said that the authors of the Zenodo report had “scooped” the China CDC authors by posting their analysis on Zenodo before the China CDC group’s work was published in a peer-reviewed journal. GISAID has granted authors access while investigating the situation.
The Debate
The debate over the Zenodo report has sparked discussion in the wider research community. By posting a report in advance of the data owners’ work being published in a journal, the Zenodo researchers could deter data generators from sharing information for fear of being scooped. This situation has sparked a debate about how and when to disseminate findings based on data found in online repositories, particularly when they relate to the highly charged question of the pandemic’s origins.
References
Crits-Christoph, A. et al. Report at Zenodo https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7754299 (2023).
Gao, G. et al. Preprint at Research Square https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1370392/v1 (2022).
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