1. How is sharing through Nucleus different from existing options?¶
Traditional means of sharing know-how do not serve the needs of the cell-free and synthetic cell communities. Traditional publishing can take years to share important immediate results or negative results. Further, useful information is often buried deep within PDFs or not available at all, slowing down the process of research. Nucleus is intended to be a knowledge sharing platform that emphasizes reproducibility and accessibility that should improve the quality of research and complement existing knowledge sharing practices.
2. How do I adhere to Nucleus open source and open science practices?¶
Using a DevNote to submit a contribution makes it easy to follow our open source and open science practices. Checkout Open science, Nucleus Hub, Developer Notes for more information. If you’d like to get started as a Nucleus Developer, reach out to build@bnext.bio and we would be happy to have a conversation.
3. What if I have a module that I want to contribute but is subject to a patent?¶
This depends on who is the patent holder. If your university holds the patent you may have to petition them to license the contribution using a suitable tool that provides a patent license (e.g. CERN-OHL-P-2.0). In general, unless a technology is being actively commercialized, a patent can hinder innovation if it prevents the technology from being used by others. Open access licensing will help fulfill the goals of making technology available for the public benefit in such instances.
4. What if I want to patent something built with Nucleus components?¶
Our licensing scheme allows this. We want Nucleus to encourage innovation including patents. However, we hope that Nucleus can function as a “take a penny, leave a penny” to enable the broader community.
5. Will posting on Nucleus affect my ability to publish?¶
DevNotes are regarded as preprints and do not count as previously published content. In general, if a journal accepts content that has been previously placed on a preprint server, then they should also accept content that has been shared as a DevNote. Of course, you should check specific journal policies to be sure.
DevNotes are intended to complement existing publishing practices. For example,
Validating a component in your own hands that has been described in a previous publication.
Sharing negative results that might never make it into a publication.
Documenting small tips and tricks that typically fall outside the scope of existing journals
Serving as a user friendly guide for sharing results after publication to increase impact and usability of parts and data
Nucleus is a great way for sharing the reproduction of an existing result while also providing the community with valuable, high quality data and user experience. Users may be required to disclose if they have disseminated components of a manuscript using preprint services (e.g. ACS journals).
6. Do you sell contributed materials to customers?¶
Our aim with Nucleus is to provide the materials at cost. In the most permissive arrangement, we would be able to include the contributed components into products but so would the people to whom we ship materials and any other interested party.
7. Does the OpenMTA stipulate that people that get this material cannot resell it?¶
Biotechnology protection has two components: intellectual property (patents and copyright) and contracts (material transfer agreements). The OpenMTA stipulates that the materials can be transferred and used for any purpose, even commercial. However, it contains no implied license - meaning patent rights/licenses must also be obtained to use OpenMTA materials for commercial use. The utility of OpenMTA is most apparent when a biological material is in the public domain (e.g. after patent expiry) – it’s transfer and use can be still be restricted by MTAs (which typically have no limits on duration).