The original mission of GISAID was that data deposited there would go to GenBank as well, with little or no delay.

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DNA, for example, it is useful to compare it with a central database (such as GenBank) of existing sequences to see what it resembles.

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Usually Science requires that researchers file their sequences in GenBank, a freely accessible database, before they are allowed to publish, as the Beijing institute has done.

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As every biomedical scientist knows, GenBank is a free, public database of genetic sequence data that contains millions of sequences, from humans, bacteria, viruses, you name it.

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In any case, Syngenta says that it will combine its work with that of a public programme, the International Rice Genome Sequencing Project, which is plodding along to produce an even more accurate version of the sequence, and deposit the whole lot in GenBank by the end of next year.

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